Thanks for Sharing (2012)

If you ever been to an addicts group, I reckon you all too well know the term "Thanks for sharing". And most of us (if not all of us), do have a tendency to drift into addiction. Some things are just too good to let go off. The movie has some very fine actors and many story lines that keep you excited and at the edge of your seat (if you get what the characters are about and feel for them, which I think the movie does a good job of putting us there).

It's best not to keep certain things secret and if it comes to addiction that is more than true. Obviously there are more than one sort of addiction and it's really good to see the characters interact in and around those addictions, but also family issues those will result in. There may be some flaws, but the movie has a heart and feels more than sincere in what it does

Fmovies: Firstly, this is NOT a romantic comedy. It's a drama all the way. Secondly, I went in not expecting much but the storyline is very touching. It made me sympathize with the characters and really feel for them as sex addiction is a very real disease. The acting by all was magnificent, Pink was awesome and I am not usually a huge fan. Only two downfalls for me, one being the ending could have been better which leads me to my next point, there were a few moments in the movie that didn't quite make sense and should have been followed up later or explained but then the movie ended with no explanations. Other than that it was a very enjoyable movie.

Thanks for Sharing looks into the world of addition and their support groups. How individuals create support networks to deal with problems. In this, the maid addition is sexual, these people can't stop having sex, but you soon discover it is more than the act but a real disease of obsessions. There is Neil (Josh Gad), the doctor who has been court ordered to seek treatment, Neil the overall good guy is overcoming his problems until he tries to connect the release of sex and emotional connection as he begins to date Phoebe (Gwyneth Partrow) and Dede (Pink) who can't relate with a man unless it deals with sex. Tim Robbins does an exceptional job of being the counselor leader as he deals with own home life turmoil with a drug addicted son. This movie is insightful of addiction and the difficulty of staying clean, no matter what your addition may be.

Thanks for Sharing fmovies. Romantic comedies have been running out of ideas for decades - thinking up fresh, interesting and yet plausible ways to break up a couple who are clearly meant for each other is no laughing matter. Bravely, Thanks For Sharing selects sex addiction as its theme, exploring the ways in which the disease bleeds into and affects the relationships of its victims. At its best, Stuart Blumberg's first film as a director smartly mines laughs amidst the drama of his protagonists' lives, just as his script for The Kids Are All Right did. More often than not, however, Thanks For Sharing suffers from an uneven tone, lurching uncomfortably from comedy to drama and back again.

Adam (Mark Ruffalo), a sex addict who's managed to stay sober for five years, is nervous about re-entering the dating field despite the encouragement of his mentor Mike (Tim Robbins). He quickly changes his mind when he meets Phoebe (Gwyneth Paltrow), although he soon realises that coming clean to her about his disease will be the one of the hardest things he's ever done. At the same time, Neil (Josh Gad) struggles with the sobriety programme, desperate to hang on to his medical license but unable to overcome the worst of his symptoms.

Blumberg's efforts are laudable, even if not entirely successful. He tries to give the topic the dramatic weight it deserves, never making light of the problems suffered by Adam, Mike and Neil. In fact, he renders the affliction more easily understandable: demonstrating that it is a sickness while drawing out the implications of being addicted to something that's such a fundamental cornerstone of human relationships. But, as a result, the film dances somewhat out of Blumberg's control. He plays one relapse for laughs, and another for horror, and doesn't quite manage to knit the two extremes together.

It doesn't help that Blumberg invests most of his time in the film's blander relationships. The push and pull between Adam and Phoebe is well-acted (and a real kick for Marvel movie enthusiasts who might like to imagine Bruce Banner and Pepper Potts cheating on Tony Stark with each other), but it falters when it hits that dramatic speed-bump. Mike's troubled relationships with his long-suffering wife Katie (Joely Richardson) and drug addict son Danny (Patrick Fugit) feel forced and obvious. It's the almost joyful, fizzy friendship between Neil and fellow addict Dede (a wonderfully natural Alecia Moore a.k.a., Pink) that walks off with the film's biggest laughs and sweetest moments.

At the heart of Thanks For Sharing lies a smart, complicated message about making relationships work: how acceptance, openness and truth can go a long way towards solving seemingly insurmountable problems. Unfortunately, that message gets buried a little beneath the film's too many layers of comedy, romance and drama.

Somewhere between Indy cinema and mainstream Hollywood as well as treading between comedy and drama, this is not an implication that it suffers from an identity crisis but more of an affirmation that genre boundaries do not have to be definite to produce an acceptable result.

The main corpus of the story is three sex addicts and their struggle to overcome it and it makes a point that a paramount factor in recovery is not so much the discipline to abstain from sexual stimulants but being surrounded by people who you can depend upon in the good as well as the bad days. In other words, community is paramount.

Overall, it is both a pleasant and poignant story that explores the isolation and darkness associated with this condition. A minus point would be the complete lack of background information on the illness although this is more than compensated in the battle these individual give not only to get better but to be accepted by others.

So a film that is both amusing with some is no little thing.

I actually laughed pretty hard in this. What I was really impressed with was the contrasting emotions throughout the entire movie and it dealt with a somewhat overlooked issue in society these days. The movie didn't really slow down at all and there was always something happening. Acting is great but that's to be expected with Mark Ruffalo and Gwenyth Paltrow. Josh Gad is hilarious as always an definitely has all the laugh out loud moments. While I'm not a fan of P!nk in any capacity, she holds herself well in this role. I'm not sure why it got a fairly average 6.3 on IMDb and a 54 on Metacritic. Perhaps it is a bit confrontational in some aspects for some people but it isn't advertised as a feel good romantic comedy. Even if you don't see it in the theatres, make sure you get it on DVD, you won't regret it.