Some actually stepped over him in their hurry to get where they were supposed to go. Ninety percent of the students who were rushed failed to stop and render aid to the stranger. ![]() But the deciding factor wasn’t the task-it was time. In the end, fewer than half the students stopped to help. What the students didn’t know was that researchers had planted a man along the way-slumped on the ground, coughing, apparently in distress. Within each group, some were told they were late and had to hurry to their destination, while others were told they could take their time. Some were told they were going to prepare a talk about seminary jobs the others, that they were going to give a talk about the Parable of the Good Samaritan, a Biblical story about helping people in need. And Renee Zellweger, as Streepobserved at the Telluride Film Festival, is able to create a place for herselfand work inside it, not acting so much as fiercely possessing her character.The movie's lesson is that we go through life telling ourselves a story aboutour childhood and our parents, but we are the authors of that story, and it isless fact than fiction.These students were recruited and divided into two groups to see what factors influenced whether or not they would help a stranger in distress. The director, Carl Franklin (“ One False Move”), goes not forbig melodramatic revelations but for the accumulation of emotional investments.Hurt and Streep are so well cast they're able to overcome the generic naturesof their roles and make them particular people. It is the craftsmanship that elevates “One True Thing” above thelevel of a soaper. She is flattered,although a little wounded that he then immediately asks her, in more or lessthe same spirit, to launder some shirts.Īs winter unfolds and Kate's illness grows more severe, Ellenbegins to suspect things about her father, and her mother observes this andfinally tells her: “There's nothing that you know about your father that Idon't know-and better.” And we see that the buried story of the movie is thehurt Kate has borne all these years over the way her daughter's love wasquietly directed away from her. George, on the other hand, throws his daughter a bone he asksher to write an introduction to his collected essays. Ellenfinally tells Kate she thinks the Minnies are like a cult group. When Ellen breaks a piece of Kate's china, Kateasks her to save the pieces because she can use them in her mosaic table. The luncheon meetings of the Minniescould be photographed for layouts in food magazines, and of course the Minniescook everything themselves. Shebelongs to a local group named the Minnies, who decorate Christmas trees withthe fury of beavers rebuilding a dam. Kate herselfdoesn't want Ellen to stay, but wasn't consulted (by her husband or herdaughter) about the decision.Īs autumn winds down into winter, Ellen coexists in the housewith a mother who is clearly demented in the area of domestic activities. Yes, a nurse could be hired, but the professordoesn't want a nurse poking around the house and disturbing his routine. The family's younger brother, Brian ( Tom EverettScott), must stay in school. Let’s get one thing out of the way: No hares were harmed in the TV remake of Fatal Attraction.' In the original 1987 movie, Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) memorably takes revenge on her ex, Dan. He, of course, is too busy withmidterms to take care of Kate. “You can work as afree-lancer from home,” the professor says, clearly not convinced that whateverhis daughter has can be described as a career. ![]() All of this begins tomatter in the next months, as it develops that Kate has cancer, and George wantshis daughter to move back home and take care of her.īut. He thinks he's a big shot, and she buys it.Įllen's hurt, we see, comes because her father, whom sheadmires, does not sufficiently show his love for her-while her mother, of whomshe disapproves, has a love that is therefore unwelcome. ![]() Ellen should be able to feela certain contempt for her father for even using such a ploy, but she isblinded by his tweeds, his National Book Award, his seminars, his whole edificeof importance. ![]() EventuallyEllen gets a chance to ask her dad about her latest magazine article, which hehas read and, “writer to writer,” thinks should be “more muscular.” Later hemuses, “When I was 20 and working at the New Yorker, I would spend a whole dayworking on a single sentence.” That's the kind of statement that deserves pityrather than respect if it is true, then to meet his deadlines he must have hadto dash off his other sentences in heedless haste. She comes home to upstate New York for a surprise birthday partyfor her father, a professor named George ( William Hurt), and is not surprisedto see her mother, Kate ( Meryl Streep), prancing around the house dressed likeDorothy in “ The Wizard of Oz.” Yes, it's a costume party, but Kate is the kindof woman who can find costumes like that right in her own closet.
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