Pass the Ritz and Mallowmars

Author's Rating:

Pros: Sweet-natured

Cons: leisurely pace is not for everyone, slightly contrived in places

The Bottom Line: 
Get out a hanky, it's chick-flick time.

Author's Review
OK, so it was mistake to watch this one in the same afternoon as The Trip to Bountiful and Walking Across Egypt. My heart was terminally warmed.

All three are great, feel-good, sweet-natured movies. But all at once was too much.

Nevertheless, when I found it in the discount bargain bin at HyVee (3movies for $11) I brought it home.

Plot: Henry Turner (Harrison Ford) is a lawyer, complete with all the stereotypes. He's charming to clients, brutal to opponents, domineering to his wife Sarah (Annette Bening, American Beauty), and ruthless with his daughter, Rachael. He never loses.

Until the night Sarah sends him out for cigarettes. Henry walks into the convenience store in mid-robbery and gets shot in the head and chest. In the hospital, we learn it's not the head shot that did the damage, but anoxia (blood deprivation) that has caused Henry's brain damage.

He takes a long time to recover. We are treated to financial woes of his family as Sarah struggles to earn enough to keep their upper-class lifestyle. This parallels his struggle to regain himself: words, mobility, identity.
He has almost no clues, and the one thing that recurs is "ritz." He eats them, paints them, and totally misinterprets them.

With the help of his rather unorthodox therapist, Bradley (Bill Nunn, Spiderman) he manages, getting very attached to Bradley in the process, and not wanting to go home with the stranger that says she's his wife.

He goes home, and begins the process of rebonding to his family. They aren't sure what to make of this nice guy where a tyrant once was. Nor are the law partners at his firm. The more he learns of the old Henry, the less he likes who he was: an adulterer, a tyrant, and a shark that was only interested in his career as opposed to justice.

Cast:
Ford is at his most overbearing in the first ten minutes, and then we get all the goofiness, the little-boy charm and everything we've been missing from his characters for so long. The transition is simple, manipulative, but it draws us in anyway. The big question is will the new guy, who seems to be mentally about 11-12, go back to being the embittered horror he was?

Bening is strong, as she must be. She copes, she deals, and she loves him through it all. The love-making scene is the most tender I've ever seen captured on film.

Mikki Allen, as daughter Rachael, turns in a marvelous performance for her screen debut. She actually acts like a child, not precocious, not overly cute.

Nunn is terrific as Bradley. He's funny, but no-nonsense. Some of his tactics are appalling, and most likely wouldn't work in real life. But he has been where Henry is, and knows that coddling him won't help him get better.

My take:
108 minutes of pure sweetness. Some ugly moments in the earlier part, and a gratuitous vulgarity. But even the scene where his mistress realizes he isn't her lover anymore is poignant.

The brain-damaged behavior seems accurate. Ford did his homework for this one (as he usually does), and created a very charming character. And the look on his face when he greets his wife at the door with a puppy is melt-worthy.

(and on a personal note, my 6 yo learned to tie his shoes watching this movie. I don't guarantee it will work for you)

The PG-13 rating is for a single strong vulgarity, overheard sex (a movie theater), adult themes of adultery.