Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Anywhere but Here (1999)
Director: Wayne Wang
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Wang is back on the 'women's movie' track of The Joy Luck Club, directing Alvin Sargent's adaptation of Mona Simpson's rites of passage tale. Portman is excellent, balancing wisdom and petulance, loyalty and imposition, as Ann, a 14-year-old dragged away from Bay City, Wisconsin, in the Mercedes of her eccentric mother, speech therapist Adele (Sarandon), who's hellbent on making it in Beverly Hills. That they only get to the foothills can't be counted a real setback. Nor could the compromise apartment, nor the effects of Adele's misjudged romantic liaison, nor the pressure of Ann's increasingly pertinent contribution to family argument. Why, then, does Adele's hard earned veneer of optimism look set to crack? Wang knows his way around material like this: the trick of balancing the tears and laughs without resort to easy targets, special pleading or the diminishment of 'patsy' characters. Adele should have been a tailor made role for Sarandon. The occasional strain in her otherwise fine performance may betoken her easing back on the pedal. Wang's most telling in the quasi-comic riffs and teasing out the reversal of the pair's roles and responsibilities. Wrapping it up, there's nice 'Scope work, fine supporting performances, and a lovely cameo by Milhoan as a sympathetic LAPD officer.Author: WH
Cast & crew
Director: Wayne Wang
Producer: Laurence Mark
Cast: Susan Sarandon, Natalie Portman, Bonnie Bedelia, Shawn Hatosy, Hart Bochner, Caroline Aaron, Corbin Allred, John Diehl, Paul Guilfoyle, Michael Milhoan full cast
Duration: 114 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now