Hanging Up (2000)

when this was released at the cinema I read that it wasn't very good, so I didn't see it. But when looking through the video store I decided to give it a go. Why? Well all the ingredients looked right. I like all the leads, Keaton as director sounded ok (surely she must have picked up something from Woody after all these years). I've liked all of Nora Ephron,s films to date, so what happened? When I saw that Keaton was playing the other's sisters I lol'ed and said "meg and lisa's mother more like". The film itself was really poor all round. Story, acting, directing and even continuity (how many times does meg have to put those roses in the vase?). I was bored basically

1/10

Fmovies: Telemarketer irritation--that's the feeling I had when I watched Hanging Up, an almost cartoonishly clichéd "woman's movie." Diane Keaton's direction of this mess is so incompetent that I hope she never stands behind a camera again. The movie fails on every level--it bored my wife and daughter (and it's only because I'm anal about finishing movies that I sat through 95 minutes of Hell; they went to bed).

This was Walter Matthau's last movie, and it hurts to see such a premiere talent being wasted (although his toupee looks as if it could live on). Meg Ryan appears to have lost weight for Hanging Up (if that's possible) and seems to be carrying the mass of the world on her shoulders, physically dissipating in front of our eyes while wearing one paper-thin muscle shirt after another. Looking scrawny and bra-less isn't appealing to anyone.

Okay, enough for the nastiness. This really is a waste of film stock. Whatever BIG messages it has about sibling rivalry and familial relationships and keeping your accident from your insurance company are lost in Keaton's attempt to play cute and/or sweet (the dog and the pill; the Iranian mom).

The movie's called Hanging Up. My suggestion is to take the phone off the hook before the opening credits.

i thought this movie was an amazing drama. it expressed what it's like to deal with the struggles of everyday life and also other difficult obstacles. this movie was one of the ONLY movies i have ever seen to truly express relationships between sisters. i loved it. i also thought it was creative because it wasn't OVERLY dramatic to the point where you lose touch with the reality of the situation. it just seemed like real sisters, with a real father, living real lives and i love that. i think the cast was amazing and they made some of the situations comical, but they didn't throw it in your face. this movie made me think, it made me cry, and it made me appreciate my sisters. i loved it.

Hanging Up fmovies. This movie is so awful I don't even know where to start ripping it apart. I am starting to think that the Ephron sisters simply had a fluke in "When Harry Met Sally". With the possible exception of "Sleepless in Seattle", their other films have been unmitigated disasters. This film is no exception. It is simply terrible. In fact it is worse than terrible, it is exceptionally frustrating. The story, without giving away any of the non-existent plot, centers around three sisters coping with their relationship with their father. They contact each other incessantly by cell phone, hence the title. Halfway through the film, you just want to grab their cell phones and smash them on the floor. They interrupt whatever they are doing to answer their phones, and there must be 100 calls answered during the 90 minute movie.

Meg Ryan is apparently trying to prove that she is a one-dimensional actress. She is, once again (ho-hum), playing the cutesy, bumbling, blond that earned her fame in When Harry Met Sally. This is a role that she plays over and over and over again, and it is downright boring now. Diane Keaton is supposed to be her sister, there are scenes with the 3 of them playing as youngsters. Diane Keaton is about 25 years older than Meg Ryan, without even mentioning Lisa Kudrow. Kudrow has of course, simply re-played her character from Friends.

Please avoid this movie at all costs. It is worse than John Travolta's incredibly bad "Battlefield Earth". It is even worse than the up-to-this-film, worst-movie-of-all-time "Next Friday". At least you could laugh at John Travolta and know that he had proven himself in other works. But "Hanging Up" will leave you seething with frustration and unfulfilled promise. I gave it a 1 out of 10. Truly awful.

The late Walter Matthau ended his long and illustrious career as a film actor in `Hanging Up,' playing, appropriately, the dying father of three adult daughters. I wish I could say that the vehicle he chose as his eventual swan song were one truly worthy of his enormous skill and talent. Unfortunately – or rather fortunately – however, this will not be the film for which he is most remembered.

Like so many films, `Hanging Up' starts off with the most noble of intentions. Writer Delia Ephron and director Diane Keaton have attempted to come to terms with the most complex issue facing the aging baby boomer generation: how does one cope with ailing, aging and dying parents while trying to keep a grip on one's own hectic life and personal commitments? And, to make matters more complicated, how does one expend the physical and emotional energy needed for such a task when the parent himself is often irascible, crusty and even downright unlikable in his behavior and nature? And, finally, how does a wounded child ultimately find it in his or her heart to forgive the parent and arrive at that moment of reconciliation so crucial when death finally comes?

When `Hanging Up' focuses on this theme, it achieves moments of point and relevance. All of us can identify with the main character, Eve (Meg Ryan), a sweet, warmhearted young woman who, alone of the three daughters, has unflaggingly dedicated herself to the care of a father who, more often than not, strikes out at her in unappreciative scorn and anger. Wearied and harassed by the enormous burdens of her hectic life and her own inability to say `no' to the people who demand so much from her, Eve emerges as a truly winning and believable character. Unfortunately, her two sisters, Georgia (Diane Keaton), a magazine magnate, and Maddy (Lisa Kudrow), a soap opera actress, come across as shallow, two-dimensional characters whose self-absorption and seeming indifference are (ho hum) really masks for the insecurity and hurt hidden deep beneath their composed surfaces.

Somehow, however, for all its attempts to deal with a truly universal theme, `Hanging Up' never seems quite real in its look and demeanor – it always feels like a movie. Maybe it is the overall slickness of the approach that undermines the seriousness of the drama. The actresses, good though they are, seem somehow too glamorous, their careers too unrepresentative of most of the people in the audience. Another problem is that the film can never seem to settle on an appropriate tone. One moment we find ourselves steeped in searing drama followed the next by a scene of trivial slapstick. Time and again, Ryan is forced to trip over a discarded toy, tangle with an overgrown mutt or bang away at an uncooperative coffee dispenser. Such incidents end up reducing the level of the drama to little more than sitcom status.

`Hanging Up' has, however, been blessed with a wonderful cast. Ryan, Keaton, Kudrow and Matthau pore on the charm and play off each other nicely. (And the film has some devilish fun playing up the physical similarities between Matthau and Richard Nixon). These fine performers obviously had a terrific time making the film together. That is why one regrets the fact, that for all their hard work, the film they left behind is so lacking in credibility and grit. At the end of his career and life, Matthau deserved better.

Touchy subject matter is a slap to the face for the way many people treat their dying senile parents,thus causing the typical masses to under rate this film.Too much reality for mainstream taste.But for those few who have MATURE INTELLECT,this film truly delivers.Heartwarming and bitter at the same time,it shows us that we have to try our best to give time to our senile parents no matter how close you were in the past.It also shows us that we must also learn to cut off some things from our lives in times of stress in order to deal with priorities.We must learn to compromise and prioritise carefully to lessen regrets.Well acted and directd film despite it's lack of story.Only for fans of drama and dark comedy who understand life.....