ichocolat
The Russell Girl deals about fear, guilt, suppressed feelings, anger, and the need to let go of the past, and to embrace the future.The Russell Girl went back to visit her family, to tell the news about her health. She was suffering from leukemia. However, when she got home, she couldn't find the courage to let her parents know about it.And her distant past caught up with her. She remembered vividly what had happened years ago, when she was entrusted to babysit her neighbor's's kids. Tragedy ensued that night, and they blamed her for the mishap.Overall, a good film, albeit a tad too slow for my liking. The ending was predictable and expected.. However, that is in no way saying that the film wasn't good or anything. It is just that it may not be everyone's cuppa tea.
Kellie Stewart
This is a movie that could have had me crying my eyes out, but one bad actress ruined the entire movie. The grieving mother seemed to think her best acting attribute was her lip quiver. The movie was also unrealistic in its family dynamics. You don't go from being sad mom for 6 years and then just overnight become super mom. It would have been a gripping story, but the person I as I mom, I know that we have the instinct that something is wrong, but mom & dad were just happy in their oblivion. I would have liked the story to have extended a bit with the girl and her family, but I guess we are left at the end knowing what we are supposed to know. I would not recommend watching this movie for the time it takes to watch it.
Flickstr
If there was a plot, it took more than 30 min to unfold and I was unable to watch any longer. The acting and production was fine but it was such a shame to waste the talent and money to produce this boring script.The Russell girl (Tamblyn) comes home to share some bad news, presumably that she is about to die of leukemia, and runs into a brooding next door neighbor harboring some grudge from another time. Sarah's mom (Mastrantonio) is so clueless about listening to Sarah's mood that Sarah starts brooding too. Tamblyn's natural brooding is so over used by this script that the first 30 minutes has enough brooding for three or four movies. As scene after scene goes by without disclosure of the root problems, my snooze level rises. After 30 minutes or so I was done. I was very BORED, and angry that my time and the talents of this great cast were wasted by this director and producer.
SpudV
While one should not expect an Emmy award winner out of the movies Hallmark typically puts out, "The Russell Girl" was OK entertainment for two hours. I appreciated the lack of long commercial breaks. It was difficult to say if the lead actress, Tamblyn, made the movie slow down in parts or if it was just the script itself. It did seem to drag out as she kept playing a "keep-away" game of her secret from her family.Even though she was relatively young (early 20's) she had not resolved a major event that had happened five years ago, one she ran away from. This movie did fairly well in showing the results of not forgiving as well as the ineffectiveness of running away from a bad situation. It just seemed to take awhile to get to the ending that wasn't a surprise but was nice to see anyhow.The strength of the movie came in giving the audience a chance to examine their own lives, if given the news of having an "aggressive cancer". Would we accept it as some sort of karma for the bad things we have done? Would we try to right past wrongs? How would we spend the little time we have left? Considering the junk that passes for entertainment on TV lately (watching someone strapped to a lie detector for an hour?), I did not have any regrets using up two hours of my life on this movie.(A better Hallmark movie on forgiveness is "The Christmas Gift" with Neal Patrick Harris.)
AD
