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Product Description
A rebellious and uncontrollable teenager is hauled off by her dysfunctional mother to spend the summer with her grandmother. Her journey will lead all three women to revelations of buried family secrets and an understanding that - regardless what happens - the ties that bind can never be broken.
Product Description
Format: AC-3 Color Dolby Dubbed DVD-Video Subtitled Widescreen NTSC. Language: English. Subtitles: English French Spanish. Aspect Ratio: 2.35: 1. Number of discs: 1. MPAA Rating: R. Studio: Mca (Universal). Release Date: Sep 4 2007. Run Time: 113 Minutes.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By BJ
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I love this show. I had bought a bunch of shows similar to this one so I always have something playing in my shop so people can watch and forget about the real world for a while. My customers love it. They say anyone else would have the news on but this way I dont and my customers relax for a while and get regenerated before they go home or back to work.
Format:DVD
"Georgia Rule" is a hard movie to watch because these days it is pretty much impossible to look at Lindsay Lohan and think of her as the character she is playing in a movie and not as a young woman who has derailed her career over the past summer. Especially when the character she plays is a self-destructive young woman without suitable parental influence, which is not to suggest that this 2007 film from director Garry Marshall typecasts Lohan, but that she and her character are clearly kindred spirits.
Rachel (Lohan) has become a handful for her mother, Lilly (Felicity Huffman), who decides for some reason that makes no sense outside of the boundaries of narrative necessity, to leave Rachel with her grandmother, Georgia (Jane Fonda), who lives in Idaho and whom Lilly has not seen in a long time. The notion is that desperate times call for desperate measures, but there is never a sense that Georgia with her rules was that horrible of a mother and that whatever flaws Lilly had as a child had become manifestly worse as an adult and a mother. But then we all know what tough love can do for a troubled young girl, and since this film is direct by Marshall, known for "Pretty Woman" and other comedies, we expect a happy ending.
We know that Rachel likes to shock people, but a bigger clue to her personality is that when it comes to men she inevitably employs her sexuality. Rachel believes the best defense is a good offense, so she always wants to get in the first shot, but when she realizes the lip she gives Dr. Simon Ward (Dermot Mulroney) hit home in a painful way that she did not intend, she feels bad about it, which gives us some small reason to have hope for her. But then we cannot make heads or tails out of her relationship with Harlan (Garrett Hedlund), especially given his less than deep reasons for liking her. This is one of those movies where you have to watch it a second time to put everything that happens in the first half in the proper context. Just be aware that when you do that it is not all going to make sense.
It is clearly established that Rachel is a liar, but the pivotal question in this film is whether or not she is lying about one particular thing, and the whole last act of the movie revolves around that issue. At this point the movie starts doing reverses and double reverses. This is a problem for me because instead of telling a compelling story I get the feeling the movie just wants to trick me into thinking the wrong thing. By the time the "truth" is revealed, I had stopped caring, and it was that point where I decided to round down on "Georgia Rule." This judgment was reinforced when I discovered there are all sorts of alternative endings included on the DVD, and while Marshall makes light of the search for the proper ending I must say that films that do not have a clear sense of what the ending should be from start to finish usually seem to have significant problems. If by nothing else other than default Marshall picked the best ending, because I would hate for Fate to provide too happy an ending for these women.
Ultimately, "Georgia Rule" is not a bad movie, but rather it fails to be a good one. That is disappointing given the presence of Fonda and Huffman, because their relationship along could have made for an interesting movie without ever brining Lohan into the mix. Given the setup there should be at least one dramatic scene between each pair of characters, but sadly that does not prove to be the case. I could even make the case that each actress has a stronger scene with Cary Elwes as Arnold, husband to Lilly and step-father to Rachel, than they ever do with each other. Lohan's best scene is when she turns the tables on the local girls who are keeping an eye on her, but when it comes to repairing her relationships with her mother and grandmother the script by Mark Andrus ("Life as a House") basically fast forwards through the by-the-numbers plotlines.
Rachel (Lohan) has become a handful for her mother, Lilly (Felicity Huffman), who decides for some reason that makes no sense outside of the boundaries of narrative necessity, to leave Rachel with her grandmother, Georgia (Jane Fonda), who lives in Idaho and whom Lilly has not seen in a long time. The notion is that desperate times call for desperate measures, but there is never a sense that Georgia with her rules was that horrible of a mother and that whatever flaws Lilly had as a child had become manifestly worse as an adult and a mother. But then we all know what tough love can do for a troubled young girl, and since this film is direct by Marshall, known for "Pretty Woman" and other comedies, we expect a happy ending.
We know that Rachel likes to shock people, but a bigger clue to her personality is that when it comes to men she inevitably employs her sexuality. Rachel believes the best defense is a good offense, so she always wants to get in the first shot, but when she realizes the lip she gives Dr. Simon Ward (Dermot Mulroney) hit home in a painful way that she did not intend, she feels bad about it, which gives us some small reason to have hope for her. But then we cannot make heads or tails out of her relationship with Harlan (Garrett Hedlund), especially given his less than deep reasons for liking her. This is one of those movies where you have to watch it a second time to put everything that happens in the first half in the proper context. Just be aware that when you do that it is not all going to make sense.
It is clearly established that Rachel is a liar, but the pivotal question in this film is whether or not she is lying about one particular thing, and the whole last act of the movie revolves around that issue. At this point the movie starts doing reverses and double reverses. This is a problem for me because instead of telling a compelling story I get the feeling the movie just wants to trick me into thinking the wrong thing. By the time the "truth" is revealed, I had stopped caring, and it was that point where I decided to round down on "Georgia Rule." This judgment was reinforced when I discovered there are all sorts of alternative endings included on the DVD, and while Marshall makes light of the search for the proper ending I must say that films that do not have a clear sense of what the ending should be from start to finish usually seem to have significant problems. If by nothing else other than default Marshall picked the best ending, because I would hate for Fate to provide too happy an ending for these women.
Ultimately, "Georgia Rule" is not a bad movie, but rather it fails to be a good one. That is disappointing given the presence of Fonda and Huffman, because their relationship along could have made for an interesting movie without ever brining Lohan into the mix. Given the setup there should be at least one dramatic scene between each pair of characters, but sadly that does not prove to be the case. I could even make the case that each actress has a stronger scene with Cary Elwes as Arnold, husband to Lilly and step-father to Rachel, than they ever do with each other. Lohan's best scene is when she turns the tables on the local girls who are keeping an eye on her, but when it comes to repairing her relationships with her mother and grandmother the script by Mark Andrus ("Life as a House") basically fast forwards through the by-the-numbers plotlines.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.9 out of 5 stars
95 reviews
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
"Courageous"...But Not Particularly Good
Sep 6 2007
By Gregor von Kallahann
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:DVD
Viewing GEORGIA RULE recently I flashed back on a passage from Salinger's FRANNY AND ZOOEY (which I had recently re-read). There is a passage in that book in which a young television actor, speaks disparagingly of scripts that are "courageous," without their necessarily being particularly good. What he's talking about, of course, is the kind of drama that is supposed to be risky and challenging, a bit off beat maybe. "Edgy" might be the current word. That's precisely the kind of dramatic work GEORGIA RULE tries to be. You can just imagine the filmmakers patting themselves (and each other) on the back, congratulating themselves on their frankness and daring.
This is a movie that wants to say SO MUCH--to bravely go where no screenwriter (or director OR producer) would have dared to go before (except that they HAVE, in point of fact). You've got your intergenerational conflict, your intergenerational substance abuse, you've got promiscuous teens--and apparently incestuous step-dads. You've got salty grandmas, agonized moms and troubled, but spunky teens. Now even if you haven't seen all these ingredients mixed up before, it's hard not to find GEORGIA RULE a bit contrived and quite desperate. It nearly breaks under the strain.
The reviews for this film have not been kind, and it seems likely that whatever notoriety it may have garnered may have more to do with Lindsay Lohan's reported bad behavior on the set than with the film's inherent quality. As it turns out, she probably could have just pleaded "Method" and claimed that she was just staying in character off-camera. Her Rachel is a bit of a wastrel. With a heart of gold, of course.
This is a film that virtually invites reviewers to say something cranky about a stellar cast adrift in a lame production. Well, it IS a pretty solid cast, and all the actors have their moments. Felicity Huffman and Lindsay Lohan have some very strong scenes--and others where the script or their director (or their own best instincts) let them down. Jane Fonda is probably the most consistent of the three starring actresses, but that may have much to do with her character's flinty, discipline-for-discipline's sake nature. She can coast a bit on her character's quirks. Huffman and Lohan are required to take more risks. Sometimes they take off, and sometimes they fall flat (quite literally in Huffman's case).
GEORGIA RULE, while not especially good, could prove instructive to aspiring actors. It's true you get to see good actors at work (and I mean, HARD at work). What you don't get is a good, solid story. In 2007, simply presenting viewers with intergenerational dysfunctionality doesn't cut it anymore--if it ever did. Yes, we know that happy families are all alike, and that unhappy families are unhappy in uniquely different ways. If that's true, however, you shouldn't have to struggle so much to show those differences. GEORGIA RULE #1 should probably have been: Don't try so hard!
This is a movie that wants to say SO MUCH--to bravely go where no screenwriter (or director OR producer) would have dared to go before (except that they HAVE, in point of fact). You've got your intergenerational conflict, your intergenerational substance abuse, you've got promiscuous teens--and apparently incestuous step-dads. You've got salty grandmas, agonized moms and troubled, but spunky teens. Now even if you haven't seen all these ingredients mixed up before, it's hard not to find GEORGIA RULE a bit contrived and quite desperate. It nearly breaks under the strain.
The reviews for this film have not been kind, and it seems likely that whatever notoriety it may have garnered may have more to do with Lindsay Lohan's reported bad behavior on the set than with the film's inherent quality. As it turns out, she probably could have just pleaded "Method" and claimed that she was just staying in character off-camera. Her Rachel is a bit of a wastrel. With a heart of gold, of course.
This is a film that virtually invites reviewers to say something cranky about a stellar cast adrift in a lame production. Well, it IS a pretty solid cast, and all the actors have their moments. Felicity Huffman and Lindsay Lohan have some very strong scenes--and others where the script or their director (or their own best instincts) let them down. Jane Fonda is probably the most consistent of the three starring actresses, but that may have much to do with her character's flinty, discipline-for-discipline's sake nature. She can coast a bit on her character's quirks. Huffman and Lohan are required to take more risks. Sometimes they take off, and sometimes they fall flat (quite literally in Huffman's case).
GEORGIA RULE, while not especially good, could prove instructive to aspiring actors. It's true you get to see good actors at work (and I mean, HARD at work). What you don't get is a good, solid story. In 2007, simply presenting viewers with intergenerational dysfunctionality doesn't cut it anymore--if it ever did. Yes, we know that happy families are all alike, and that unhappy families are unhappy in uniquely different ways. If that's true, however, you shouldn't have to struggle so much to show those differences. GEORGIA RULE #1 should probably have been: Don't try so hard!
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
How do we know we're loved? 4 1/2 stars
Sep 11 2007
By C. Harmon
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:DVD
Though I don't recall this movie getting great reviews from the critics, I expected at least a decent movie considering the three main stars. I got more than expected. The three lead actresses were well chosen. Jane Fonda, looking exceptionally well at age 70, is outstanding as the grandmother, Georgia, who lives her life by certain 'rules,' hence the title, and who has a history with her daughter, Lilly, (Felicity Huffman), that seems lacking in emotion. 'Seems' is the operative word. While we aren't exactly privy to what has caused this rift between mother and daughter, we glean from one particular scene that Georgia's parents never told HER that they loved her. We gather that Georgia's apparent inability to say the three words, "I love you" to her daughter may simply be because she was not told what she needed to hear from her parents. In one touching scene between Georgia and Lilly, when Lilly asks her mother if she ever loved her, Georgia replies, 'How could I not love you?' She still is not able to say those three magic words to her daughter though she has no trouble saying them to her granddaughter, Rachel, (Lindsay Lohan). Dermont Mulroney is wonderfully cast as the kindly veterinarian whom Rachel works for and Cary Elwes well cast in a somewhat chilling performance as Rachel's stepfather.
Rachel lies, manipulates, has a history of drug abuse and all manner of teen problems. There is, of course, a reason for her behaviour and underneath it all, we see many glimpses of a tender heart.
This is Ms. Lohan's best performance since she made her wonderful debut as identical twins in 'The Parent Trap' at the age of eleven. Despite the two other big name stars, Lindsay Lohan is THE star of this movie. We can only hope that this gifted young lady is able to heal herself before a very promising career is ruined.
Rachel lies, manipulates, has a history of drug abuse and all manner of teen problems. There is, of course, a reason for her behaviour and underneath it all, we see many glimpses of a tender heart.
This is Ms. Lohan's best performance since she made her wonderful debut as identical twins in 'The Parent Trap' at the age of eleven. Despite the two other big name stars, Lindsay Lohan is THE star of this movie. We can only hope that this gifted young lady is able to heal herself before a very promising career is ruined.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
I watched a different movie than most reviewers
Sep 16 2007
By Stephanie Roth
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:DVD
I truly enjoyed this movie. I've always been a Fonda fan. Felicity has never disappointed. And Lindsay shows she is a quality actress, right up there with the other two. In the scene in the boat where she's seducing the guy and they show a close up of just her face, you can see every emotion that crosses her mind.
My biggest difference, however with the reviewers is that they harp on how odd it is to have humor in a film on such a serious topic as sexual abuse. I found this movie to be rather on target with its light hearted moments mixed in with the pain. And then these usually male reviewers go on about was she abused, wasn't she, why doesn't she make up her mind. To me, it seems obvious these fellows have never experienced such abuse personally, nor have they observed, with any care, someone who has. There's no straight line to recovery.
I loved this movie for its story and the acting. Nothing rang false in my book.
My biggest difference, however with the reviewers is that they harp on how odd it is to have humor in a film on such a serious topic as sexual abuse. I found this movie to be rather on target with its light hearted moments mixed in with the pain. And then these usually male reviewers go on about was she abused, wasn't she, why doesn't she make up her mind. To me, it seems obvious these fellows have never experienced such abuse personally, nor have they observed, with any care, someone who has. There's no straight line to recovery.
I loved this movie for its story and the acting. Nothing rang false in my book.
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3.9 out of 5 stars
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