Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)

This film goes into the category of "Chick-Flick" but there are some "Chick-Flicks" that are very well made. Unfortunately, this is not one of those. Story starts out with 4 girls in the woods about 50 years ago who invent a club just for them called..Oh, you know. Well, forward ahead to modern day and we see Sidda Walker (Sandra Bullock) who is a successful playwright and she gives an interview to Time magazine and says her childhood was difficult. The article comes out and Sidda's mother Vivi (Ellen Burstyn) reads it and is furious and writes her out of her will and tears up her photo's and acts very melodramatic. The rest of the "Ya-Ya's" are Teensy (Fionnula Flanagan), Necie (Shirley Knight) and Caro (Maggie Smith) and they travel to where Sidda lives and spike her drink and somehow get her back to Louisiana but don't tell Vivi that they have her. Well, she finds out from Sidda's fiance' Conner (Angus Macfadyen) that they have her but she is not allowed to see her. While at their place Sidda looks at their old scrapbook and then the film uses flashbacks to view several events including why Vivi was a difficult mother and her bout with depression and being hooked on pills. This film is the directorial debut of writer Callie Khouri who wrote the screenplay for "Thelma and Louise" and she displays tremendous patience in her storytelling and the film goes on way to long. The characters all play Southern Belles and there are times during the film that it is difficult to understand exactly what they are saying. Smith is an English actress and her Southern accent is just not believable. As I watched this film I kept waiting for the big scene that is suppose to tell us about Vivi but it never really comes because we already know in advance about her troubles and yet the film is still a solid two hours long. James Garner plays Shep and the actor that plays him as a young man appears to be a good foot taller then he is. I didn't hate this film because with a great cast like this it would be impossible. The most effective scenes in the film come from Ashley Judd who is suppose to be a young Vivi and although I'm not convinced of how good of an actress she is, she is good in this film. This film could have benefited from more editing and more realistic dialogue. Great cast tries hard but except from a few scattered moments this is a big disappointment. "Ya-Ya"!

Fmovies: Despite its silly title, which just refers to a childhood game, this is a profoundly serious movie about reconciliation.

It spans three generations of women, tormented by religion and mental breakdown. It explores three generations of mother-daughter relationships.

This would be a great movie for any child of an abusive mother.

Siddalee, the Sandra Bullock character, gradually comes to understand her grandmother and mother and is thus gradually able to forgive them.

It is a frustrating movie. I found myself demanding the plot bound along with series of Hollywood contrivances, but it meanders and backtracks, tantalising then not delivering, much like real life.

The unbearably aching mood of reconciliation and nostalgia gradually develops, partly due to the long suffering, ever-loving Shep Walker (James Garner in a low-profile role quite unlike the ones he normally plays), and Connor (Angus Macfadyen), Siddalee's ever-patient Irish boyfriend.

Maggie Smith is in it, reason enough to watch it.

The movie recreates the south in lush Technicolor over three generations, a visual feast.

If you are embarrassed to cry in public, make sure to watch this alone.

What a shame!!! This is the worst excuse for an adaptation of a novel I have ever seen. Nothing is explained about Siddalee, Shep, Vivi, the Ya-Yas, the younger siblings, Buggy, etc. No one will understand fully the anguish that the children went through as children or the anguish that Vivi went through in her own childhood. Shortcuts were taken left and right in this film, much to the detriment of the storyline. For instance, Shep is not a living saint, Vivi did not simply beat her children because of dexamyl, Teensy's mother is barely mentioned, Vivi's stay at the boarding school was left out, and where is Aunt Jezie, grownup Lulu, Little Shep, and Baylor? I realize that it was a two hour film, but an adaptation should never have been attempted if it wasn't going to be done faithfully. Everything in this film was explained away too easily. Sidda needed much more than a sob story about her mother's loss and use of dexamyl to explain her behavior. Too easy, too simple, too cheesy. No one could possibly come away with a clear understanding and resolution of the plot.

My recommendation: SKIP IT and read the fabulous books this was supposedly based on: Little Altars Everywhere and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya sisterhood.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood fmovies. A chick flick for chicks of all ages, "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" tells of four Louisiana ladies who establish their secret Ya-Ya sisterhood, bound by blood and oath and honor, at a young age and who remain friends over the years providing each other with friendship and support. The film's thin storyline is about one such "sister" (Burstyn/Judd) who has issues with her adult daughter (Bullock) and her sister Ya-Ya's who come to her rescue much to her dismay. What ensues is a warmly funny kind of jambalaya which makes up for its gaping plotholes with personality, charm, and rambunciousness as it stumbles through it story finally arriving gasping and wheezing at its feel good conclusion. Gagging material for grinches, most will find the "Ya-Yas" are just too damned much fun not to like on some level. (B)

"I'm not O.K. and you're not O.K. and that's O.K." That's one of the messages of this funny, profound, honest film. The flawed humanity of its characters stands alongside the transcendent miracle of friendship.

Young Siddalee Walker (played with passion and humor by Sandra Bullock) has made it as a playwright in New York. She has been successful in starting an entirely new life, in the process gaining distance from her alcoholic, mercurial mother back in Louisiana. She has escaped -- or has she? Something makes her send a postcard home by giving an interview to Time Magazine in which she attributes her creativity to the mistreatment she suffered as a child. That serves as a call to action for her mother's lifelong friends (Fionnula Flanagan, Shirley Knight, and the incomparable Maggie Smith, wheeling an oxygen tank). It seems likely at this point that Siddalee's mother Vivi (Ellen Burstyn) will go to her grave without ever speaking to her beloved daughter again. Drastic action is called for, and these three ladies are no frail blossoms.

They kidnap Siddalee, bring her to a backwoods cottage in Louisiana, and set about the task of helping both mother and daughter to remember that growth comes from acknowledging connections, not severing them. They are aided in this task by an ornate scrapbook that the four of them kept of their youthful adventures as the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

The members of this sisterhood do not turn a blind eye to each other's shortcomings. In one of the film's many poignant moments, Siddalee does a cruel impersonation of her mother. As the audience readies itself for Vivi's friends to rush to her defense, one of them (Maggie Smith, of course) says dryly, "She's got her pegged all right." These women, who are about as far from perfect as the cottage in Louisiana is from New York, dare to love each other with eyes wide open.

Flanagan, Knight, and Smith are delightful as Vivi's three friends, and James Garner contributes a fine performance as the quiet, forbearing husband and father. Most memorable of all is the wounded beauty of Ellen Burstyn as the tempestuous Vivi, who has grown up with two kinds of savagery --- the naked brutality of her father and the merciless piety of her mother. Through the whole film shines the keen emotional intelligence of director Callie Khouri.

This film is a masterpiece that should not be missed.

Excellent is an understatement. The movie, which I saw yesterday, was exactly like the book, which I read a few months ago. The actors captured the characters perfectly. The story was moving, powerful and heart-warming. It makes you feel sad, then happy, then sad and then happy again. Maggie Smith was hilarious as Caro and Ellen Burstyn was outstanding as Vivi Dahlin'. Ashley Judd played the part of young Vivi brilliantly. It's probably her finest performance yet. All in all, the movie was wonderfully made and didn't deviate from the book, like so many films do. You HAVE to see this film.