gradyharp CRUSH is now a ten year old film written and directed by John McKay, a film that stands up well with the passage of time and the observations of feminine behavior. It is blessed with a fine cast of actors and has the courage to take a comedic start and turn it into a tragic mode without destroying the main theme of the special friendship among a small group of women. Kate Scales (Andie MacDowell) is a headmistress of a private school in a smallish English town and is close friends with policewoman Janine (Imelda Staunton) and physician Molly Cartwright (Anna Chancellor): each of the women is in the 40s range of age and each is single, their social life is meeting together for booze, smoking, and gossip and competing by putting themselves down for having the worst faux pas with men. Kate encounters a young former student of hers, Jed Willis (Kenny Doughty) as he plays the organ for funerals. There is a mutual attraction and soon they are having a frequent physical relationship. Jed is sincerely in love with Kate but Kate feels the 20 some odd year difference in their ages in an insurmountable gap - though she is passionately attracted to Jeb. When Kate shares her 'affair' with Molly and Janine her friends are appalled and set out to destroy a relationship they feel is completely wrong and doomed to failure. Molly and Janine take extreme measures to see to it that the couple is broken up and their intentions result in a tragedy they all must face. The repercussions of this behavior creates a whole new set of circumstances and despite the tragic elements the friends are able to reunite by film's end - with very clear discoveries about each other and changes in each of their lives. There is a lot of well written and well delivered humor in the first half of the film with the trio of women creating a bond that seems to be ceaselessly entertaining. The introduction of Jed - played to perfection by the very talented Kenny Doughty - changes the theme of the story and while many viewers will feel negative about the turn of events there is here a chance for the examination of the spectrum of friendship that is solidly written and performed. What seems to be a bit of fluff movie develops into a psychological study that makes it stand above many other 'chick flick' comedies. Grady Harp

randb-4 This was awful. Andie Macdowell is a terrible actress. So wooden she makes a rocking horse look like it could do a better job. But then remember that turn in Four Weddings, equally as excruciating. Another film that portrays England as full of Chocolate box cottages, and village greens. I mean that school, how many schools apart from maybe Hogwarts look like that? The twee police station looked like the set from Heartbeat ( a nauseating British series set in the 60s).This film just couldn't make its mind up what it wanted to be- a comedy or a serious examination of the undercurrents in women's friendships. If it had stuck to the former then the graveyard sex scenes and the highly stupid storming of the wedding might just have worked( i say just). But those scenes just didn't work with the tragedy in the second half. I also find it implausible that Kate would ever speak to Molly again after her terrible behaviour. A final note- what is a decent actress like Staunton doing in this pile of poo? Not to mention Anna Chancellor. Macdowell should stick to advertising wrinkle cream.

dreamscapist First off, let me say that I love Andie MacDowell -- she's gorgeous, charming, very sweet, and she's proved her acting abilities to me in several roles. She also has the most delicious and engaging smile.I was very much enjoying "Crush" up until that tragedy came out of left field, so angering me that I yelled at the screen. I actually felt betrayed after becoming so swept up in all the joy and romantic eroticism beforehand. There could have been all sorts of adversity for the couple to face without the great, plot-shifting finality as written. This is the only reason I can't count the film as a true favorite.Still, there's that one pivotal, magical scene, in which Andie's character first meets her former student as a strapping adult. When he asks her, barely suggestively, if he could get her anything, Andie provides the most wonderful and telling expression: her eyes soften and her jaw slowly drops with breathy desire -- long-suppressed desire -- and without a word she speaks volumes about her deep well of longing and the smoldering lust that is overcoming her in the moment...she is a vital, beautiful woman, and her needs can no longer be ignored. Jump cut to the teacher well-mounted behind some bushes and you have the cinematic equivalent of orgasmic abandon, all done quite politely. I still become, uh...quite moved by the memory of it.

yumincairns Andie MacDowell's facial expressions are great again in this movie. When you enter 40 and have been single for a while (or all your life) you may feel you are wasting away. The movie is a sweet reminder that love can be found just anywhere if your antennae is acutely active. I liked the quick sexual encounter, which must be out of character for a normally reserved school teacher (MacDowell). Her ex-student is cute enough, still carrying a crush on his teacher for so long. There are some parts that I thought rather unrealistic or unpractical, though. For example, at a scene where the other women's jealousy override and a scene was set up to make Andie MacDowell dump the young man, would a mature police officer (the other friend of MacDowell) allow her friend to do such a sinister act? Is it so easy for anyone to not stop in front of a car? Of course accidents happen all the time, but I hoped to see the heroine get happily married with the first man she got involved with (that was the hardest part to believe!! For such a beautiful woman to stay single for so long??)... Maybe the movie producers are aware of the fact that many romance between an older woman and a younger man do not last for long. Beside they know that a happy ending would not appeal to the public, especially to jealousy women over 40, who are waiting some miracles to happen. The sad ending with a glimpse of hope for the sad woman who lost her true love is sweet, but if the man continued to live, would that last? For how long? Nobody knows. Nonetheless, it's a movie to make you want to watch it again sometime later.... a year later maybe.