Astraether
I know I'm in the minority here, after having read several glowing reviews of this movie, but I felt the need to chime in nonetheless. Perhaps I'm not the right sort of audience for this kind of movie, since I usually find these rom-drams (romantic dramas) horribly saccharine and cheezy, and this one was no different -- in fact, moreso than most.First off, let me just get one little tidbit off my chest, and here's a warning: SPOILERS BELOW! Why the heck would someone, knowing that their wife has a heart condition that makes her susceptible to heart attacks, plan a surprise party, of all things, for her birthday?!? Am I the only one who finds this ludicrous? Did the writers never stop to think, oh, maybe that's not a good idea? I haven't read the book, so I don't know if that part was in it or not, but come ON! It made me conjure up my own little sub-plot, where hubby Matt was actually trying to kill his wife, and considering how everything turned out in the end, where he gets his convenient little ready-made family to replace the former one, well, it's not such a bad plot, and maybe it would've made a better movie.MORE SPOILERS!! I knew the wife Suzanne was going to die from the get-go. I mean, come on, they establish a delicate heart condition, and they show the new girlfriend reading her diary, and I've seen enough of these types of movies to know the formula, so it was just a matter of figuring out when and how. That's really the main reason I finished watching this ridiculous drama.But of course they have to throw in some moralizing along the way: Suzanne shouldn't have a baby, it's really dangerous for her, she's a doctor and knows the risks -- but rather than do something sensible like adopt a child who could use a good home, she goes ahead and has a baby anyway, because isn't that a woman's true function in life? To be a mother? And, you know, abortion is bad -- even when a pregnancy presents a serious risk to a woman's health, she should just go ahead and have the baby anyway, because then her life is fulfilled! YET MORE SPOILERS: Oh, and speaking of abortions, the little twist where Kate gets pregnant presented another moral conundrum. Apparently it's okay for a woman who's casually dating some guy (which is how the movie seemed to present their relationship) to just skip a pill or two, on the off-chance that it "might work out" with her boyfriend. Seriously, that's what Kate tells her doctor when he asks why she missed her pill. I guess she just decided to take it upon herself to maybe get pregnant, without ever bothering to even discuss that with her boyfriend! But god forbid she should get an abortion, because that's just wrong! No, she too should just go ahead with this unplanned pregnancy, because she's a woman, and women are just baby-makers, and it'll all work out in the end! Ugh. I think that one word sums up my thoughts on this movie as a whole. Everything about it was designed to be a tear-jerker, and judging from the rest of the reviews, I guess it worked, but I was left at the end feeling annoyed and preached to. Like I said earlier, if you want to watch it from the perspective of this would-be writer plotting to kill his rich doctor wife so he can move into her nice big house, well, that might make a more interesting storyline than this ridiculous melodramatic twaddle.
vchimpanzee
Kate Wilkinson is a book editor who receives a copy of the diary of Dr. Suzanne Bedford, started in 2003 for her then unborn son Nicholas. We go back and forth from Suzanne's life to Kate's, which is unfortunate because I enjoyed Suzanne's life so much more.At the start of the movie, Suzanne is a busy Boston physician who discovers she has heart problems. Because having a baby would risk her health, Suzanne ends up breaking up with her boyfriend who wanted children, and also moves to a less stressful island community to take over a general practice.Among her neighbors is the quirky Melanie, who advises her that the house where Suzanne lives and works needs fixing up. Melanie refers her to a man who calls himself Picasso, a Brown graduate who gave up the corporate life working for his father in order to become a writer. Soon the relationship between Suzanne and her handyman becomes more than just friendship. When she becomes pregnant, Suzanne is advised to have an abortion but she refuses.Suzanne's patients, including hypochondriac Earl ('What seems to be the problem?' 'What isn't?') care a lot about her. Sadly, all is not perfect in this paradise.Kate starts a relationship of her own with Matt, a client who wrote about the same community where Suzanne lived. Meanwhile, Kate reads the diary and wonders if the story is true, and she learns lessons that help her in her own life.It took a while, but I ended up liking Suzanne a lot, and I enjoyed her story, even with the problems she experienced, and I wished things had ended differently for her. I thought Christina Applegate did an admirable job, and I liked her goofy neighbors. I even sort of liked her sensitive bearded husband.As for Kate, I couldn't stand her. I won't take anything away from Kathleen Perkins' performance, but somehow I couldn't find her appealing, even when the character mentioned growing up in North Carolina. That's the only part of her story I enjoyed, and it lasted about five seconds. Worse yet, Kate's story wasn't even completely in chronological order, though later I understood certain things better.I would have been much happier if the entire movie had been Suzanne's diary, with no flashbacks.
