Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageRosalie Goes Shopping (1989)
Director: Percy Adlon
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Rosalie (Sägebrecht) would seem to have it made: her crop duster hubby (Davis) dotes on her, her countless kids dote on her, even her priest (Reinhold) is less than harsh in his condemnation of her penchant for cheque and credit card fraud. But Rosalie - a corpulent, ever-smiling hausfrau who has landed up in Stuttgart, Arkansas - is so infected by the material greed of the American Way that she can never own enough. Adlon's third film with Sägebrecht may have been conceived as an anarchic dig at Western capitalism, but it is so smugly conspiratorial that any such intentions have been transformed into a paean to avaricious cunning. Ethics aside, the film also suffers from having no plot to speak of; a good hour is spent dwelling on the loveable wackiness of Rosalie's brood, and the mix of sluggish sentiment and forced eccentricity is tiresomely reminiscent of Capra's oddball simple folk in You Can't Take It With You. Adlon does his usual stuff with bright-coloured decor, but the vaguely modernist veneer can't conceal the dearth of genuine feeling at the film's manipulative core.Author: GA
Cast & crew
Director: Percy Adlon
Producer: Percy Adlon, Eleonore Adlon
Cast: Marianne Sägebrecht, Brad Davies, Judge Reinhold, Erika Blumberger, Willy Harlander, John Hawkes, Patricia Zehentmayr, Alex Winter full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 94 mins
Top Stories
Ridley Scott interview
Director Ridley Scott tells Cath Clarke why he's making a science fiction comeback
Cannes Film Festival 2012: half-time report
Dave Calhoun reports on the hits, misses and a shocking new masterpiece from Michael Haneke
What do you think?
Post your review now