Some very good performances help this otherwise forgettable film about the relationship between the three daughters (played by Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow), of a dying man (Walter Matthau.) There isn't anything particularly noteworthy about the story itself. Told largely in flashback style, we see how the father-daughter relationship evolved over the years from a happy, loving one through the breakup of the parents and into the last days before Lou's death. The movie features fairly typical scenarios of the types of things that might cause family breakdowns (divorce, alcoholism, sibling rivalry, etc.) There are some humourous moments, but all in all I found myself largely disappointed by the story.
As I mentioned, though, there were some good performances which lifted this from a bad one to the ranks of mediocre to average. Meg Ryan was particularly good as Eve, the daughter who bears most of the responsibility for caring for Lou. She's guilty of a bit of overacting at times, but is definitely worthy of the leading role. Walter Matthau played Lou very well - but, of course, he should have been accustomed to playing crotchety old men by that point in his career. There were some surprise performances as well. Lisa Kudrow demonstrated more acting ability than I expected from her based on having watched "Friends" a few times, and, in a very limited role, Duke Moosekian was really quite funny as Dr. Omar Kunundar, whose car Eve manages to damage in a car accident. On the negative side, I was also surprised by what I thought was a very below average performance by Diane Keaton (who also directed, and who, in my opinion, showed no great talent as a director.) She simply began to grate after a while.
The best word I can come up with to describe this movie is bittersweet, both in the story of how a seemingly happy family turned out to be so consumed in anger and jealousy, and in the sense that the movie had possibilities, particularly in the strong performances I mentioned, that just didn't seem to add up to anything. Generously, I rated this as a 5/10.
