Duane Hopwood (2004)

Great Movie - And Great Soundtrax

Just saw this movie on cable. I passed over it at my local DVD store and that was a mistake. Great performances! But this review is to praise the music in the film. Where's the soundtrax? Great music. I just downloaded 3 of the songs from the film online. I had to go to another site to see the name of the songs. July 1, 2007

movie delivers truth

Duane Hopwood is just your average Joe, hard worker, married, 2 kids everything you would want in life. Everything begins to unravel on Duane he starts drinking too much and letting his work affect his home life. Soon enough he's divorced and is losing his kids, with a touching and believable performance by David Schwimmer the movie delivers something a lot of movies don't and that's truth. Characters are a raw and compelling. Schwimmer gives a great performance. During the entire movie you want him to get with it, and finally after 2 hours he does and it is amazing to see. You find yourself crying and then 10 min later you are laughing. Humor sneaks in the film which is hard to do in such a real drama.
June 14, 2007

Just Doesn't Work

Expecting to completely enjoy this movie based on some nice things I had heard, I was stunned by my negative reaction. Wow! This movie wants you to care about alcoholic loser Duane and the serious problems that he faces one minute. The next, it wants you to laugh at weird and completely unrealistic characters and situations. Sometimes it tries for subtle realism, sometimes for the absurd. It just doesn't work. If you think child endangerment is funny, this might be the movie for you. But there was no payoff for me. Every time I was tempted to care, the movie then played a comedy bit to throw things off course again. June 3, 2007

What indie American film should be about

I caught this on The Movie Channel and was struck by the lack of fanfare preceding its appearance on cable. I did three minutes of research and found Roger Ebert named it to his "Best of 2005" list. Schwimmer gives a subtle performance that packs an emotional punch, and Garafalo never strikes a false note as the spouse who has to move on but still has compassion for the man who used to be her husband. What indie American film should be about - and a big boo to those responsible for not seeing this little gem through to the much wider audience it clearly deserved. May 14, 2007

Amazing in every way!

Duane Hopwood is one of my favourite films of all time. Being a big fan of David Schwimmer I was really looking forward to the release of the DVD and after watching it for the first time I was absolutely blown away. David Schwimmer has always amazed me with his incredible acting skills, but this film really shows how much of an amazing actor he is. It's about a decent respectable man trying to earn a living, while struggling to fight for custody of his two young daughters. It's the best film on alcholism I have ever seen and it's about real people dealing with real life. My father struggled with alcholism and I know how hard it is to watch your family fall apart. The kids in this film really moved me, I couldn't believe that they could act like that at such a young age. I definitely recommend this film.



May 5, 2007

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