Popcorn Reviews With Cybèle: Hope Floats

By Cybèle Elaine Werts  
CybeleW@aol.com

First  published in the Shelburne News, Shelburne Vermont

Popcorn Kernel Rating: Two kernels - a nice, light summer date movie. Not much to bite into.

I read the Burlington Free Press review on Hope Floats last week, which pretty much said that it was about a ex-beauty queen who finds out on a talk show that her husband is cheating on her with her best friend. She goes home to mom; spends a lot of time depressed; is romanced out of it via a local guy who had the hots for her in high school; and lives happily every after. Well, the Free Press pretty much got it right on that. I wish I had something to add to the blurb, but that’s pretty much what happens.

While my niece said she thought the movie was "good," I figured my gentle readers would want something more substantial for their nickel. Sure, it was good. I got a little weepy a few times - and who wouldn’t? But even if I hadn’t read the review, I knew from the first moment what the ending was. Hope Floats was a safe movie, a movie about pulling up your bootstraps and coming out of trauma with your class and charm intact. Still, I wanted something unexpected, something more. The one moment that made this movie worthwhile was a scene when Bullock dances with her sick father. Far from the schmaltz of a wedding dance, this one was heartfelt and quietly dignified. Gena Rowlands also gave strength and vitality to the somewhat eccentric mother’s role. Altogether, a good movie to cuddle up with the family over but not one when you want something that will keep your brain engaged.

Suggested Gustatorial Accompaniment: Mallow Bars. They look substantial on the outside, but are mostly fluff when you actually bite into them.

Copyright 2000