ira-sd A film that describes the relationships and the hardships of dealing with pain and moving on. Who knew that simplicity is the key to tell a story like that.

Missoulamovies -spoiler alert-Nobody likes movies about people, just people, anymore. This movie is sweet, well written, and ends on a happy note. Quit trying to be wanna be movie critics and just enjoy a grown-up movie. And duh, no movie with J.K. Simmons in it is ever bad. Especially with the chickens. Go Griz.

gsygsy Enjoyable movie, with a strong central performance by Susan Sarandon, and dependable support from Rose Byrne and J.K. Simmons.Writer-director Lorene Scafaria tells her story skilfully, wittily and warmly. Ms Sarandon plays Marnie, a New Yorker who, following the death of her husband, relocates to L.A. to be near her screenwriter daughter Lori, played by Ms Byrne. The film is really about the two women working through their grief, but the telling of their tale is done with deftly, lightly: it isn't a heavy film. The overall tone is one of optimism, but without anything mawkish or Pollyanna-ish.When Lori heads back to NYC to work on a TV project, Marnie knows she has to look for ways to fill her time. She volunteers as a baby-sitter to a friend of Lori's, which leads her to becoming a wedding-planner; she volunteers at a hospital, which culminates in a most unexpectedly moving scene; she stumbles into a location shoot for a movie, becomes a walk-on, and thereby finds a friend in a retired policeman played by Mr Simmons; and she befriends a young guy who helps her come to grips with her iPad (product placement, I suspect) she ends up helping him in return.If you think there are too many story lines, you're right. This is the film's only weakness, to my mind. In particular , the iPad guy story line is redundant: it has no pay-off and, in spite of a charming performance by Jerrod Carmichael, could easily be cut from the movie, making it a lean 90 minutes instead of the slightly flabby 100 that it is.All in all, it's a well-crafted, gently amusing piece of work.

TxMike We watched this at home on DVD from our public library. The writer/director makes interesting, somewhat quirky comedies about life, but not slapstick comedy. Good writing and a good cast add up to a very entertaining viewing experience.The DVD has a good extra about "the real Marne". The whole story is derived from the real life relationship of the filmmaker and her mother, during one of her other projects she told her mother "The next script I'm going to write is about you and I'm going to call it The Meddler."Susan Sarandon, almost 70 in real life, is Marnie, her long time husband had died a year or so earlier, and he had left her very well off financially. So she moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles to be near her adult daughter who works in the movie and TV industry.The daughter is played by Australian actress, Rose Byrne, using her best American accent as Lori. The first 20 minutes or so I wasn't at all confident that I would like the movie, Marne was meddling a bit too much and Lori seemed a bit too passive-aggressive, but as the story settled in it became nicely interesting. It really is Marne's story, when Lori has to go to New York for a while to shoot a pilot (not that kind of pilot) Marne gets to explore her own life more. She gets into a volunteer job at a hospital. She meets a woman who wants to re-marry her wife so Marne buys her a wedding dress and rents a yacht for the event. Her therapist wonders if using her money like that is a way of "buying friendship and acceptance."But Marnie's life gets really interesting when she is walking around and happens upon an outdoor movie shoot, she is mistaken for an extra and goes along with it. In the process she meets J.K. Simmons who is retired police officer Zipper (his last name), working easy security for the shoot. Marne is not ready to jump into any sort of relationship but she accepts his friendship, visits him in the canyon, where he grows chickens for their eggs. Just a very pleasant man who also plays guitar and sings with a nice, mellow baritone.Is this a chick flick? I don't know, I hate to put labels on movies, but it is a very realistic story and watching the story unfold with some great actors, this guy enjoyed it very much.