Audience Member
Being that Jessica Lange is my favorite actress and being that she holds that ranking over so many other favorite actresses of mine, it is always difficult to find any fault in her performances. And I certainly can't find not one in her performance as Beth in the film, MEN DON'T LEAVE. So, men don't leave? Actually, they do. It happened to Beth when her husband died in an explosion, leaving her to raise two boys alone. In a steady (and sturdy) descent into depression, Beth realizes it's actually her, a woman, who is leaving her boys and a potential male love interest. But these boys and love interest have no intentions of leaving Beth. If anything, they want to hang around as long as she will allow them. MEN DON'T LEAVE is very stylistic, all in part to the stylized direction of Paul Brickman (just watch his Cruise-charged film, RISKY BUSINESS, and you will see what I mean). And often with this type of uniqueness in filmmaking coupled with what is in essence a family drama, the pain and desperate union of a family falling apart can get lost. But that doesn't happen here....well, not overtly so. What we are left with at the film's conclusion is some pretty simple stuff: Family is everything! It's not that this theme has not been done to death, because it has. It's because it needs to be done to death so that families don't drift away from each other no matter what. Once again, Ms. Lange's performance is realistic and heartfelt and brilliant, as is her trademark as an actress. Joan Cusack gives a star-making turn, as does Chris O'Donnell as Beth's oldest teenage son. Their chemistry is a hoot, and it's Cusack's Jody, a woman who won't leave Beth alone, that brings Beth and this film to the heart of it all. And the little Maddie, the younger boy/brother in the film, has the weight of the world on him until he breaks down with Beth and his older brother to say he is afraid to tell them the bad thoughts he has for fear they might not like him and leave him. That is some serious, soul-searching for a boy that young, but little children always seem to serve up the truth that adults are too prideful or ashamed to admit. MEN DON'T LEAVE is about one man who did but a whole bunch of other men and boys who didn't. It's a film that does the heart good to know that all humans, men and women, will come and go, but indeed family members will stay and stick together even when they are drifting so far apart. It's the ties that bind that bind us all in mutual memories shared and family love that never really dies, does it?
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Jessica Lange, Chris O' Donnell, and Kathy Bates
Lange plays a mother/wife Beth Macauley with two boys, Matt and Chris, and a loving husband who works in construction
sadly he dies in a work explosion and she's left to handle the kids along with $63,000 in debt
the only logical move is to go live in Baltimore but even that proves to be a huge adjustment
Matt goes to a new school and befriends a troublemaking classmate, Chris bumps into an older woman name Jody and she takes a somewhat peculiar interest in him, and Beth starts seeing a musician still in the process of separating from his own wife
Beth is struggling to fill her husbands shoes and Chris is trying to be the father figure to his little brother but also not wanting his mom to be miserable
The hurt doesn't ever stop but something like this is very educating for us all to learn from it, we don't always have to be good our folks will love us either way, talking to each other is the only way to cope, and the best men in our lives never leave us least of all their mothers
A touching and completely relatable movie, had me weeping at one point too I admit
All families have to go through massively changes but we can still survive by leaning on one another
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/22/23
Full Review
Audience Member
A film that straddles the line between gritty and surreal with surprising success. Original and free of cliches. Great performances all around. Some of Jessica Lange's greatest work. Sometimes she is hard to watch, and that's exactly how we're supposed to feel for this woman whose life has been destroyed.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/20/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Watching the suffering, growth, and personal renewal of these likeable characters we gain a fresh perspective on our primal feelings about the family circle. One of the most unjustly underappreciated films of the 1990s; wonderfully acted.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
Full Review
scott m
Story about a recent widow who has to raise her two kids on her own. Joan Cusack is really good in this movie. If it wasn't for her I'd have hated it. Jessica Lange can play sexy, but this is not that type of role. She sucked in this movie. The story was good though.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
A widower tries to keep her family afloat in this melodrama.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
02/19/23
Full Review
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