HANGING UP

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: sexual references, language

Rated:

Sooner or later, all families must face the impending loss of a loved one. It's one of the hardest times of our lives, because it forces us to think about our own mortality, and brings forth memories of all the good (and bad) times we have shared with that person. The writer of Hanging Up has one of the most touching glimpses into grief that I have ever seen. Yes, it is a comedy, but it is also a drama about sisterhood ... and loss.

The middle sister of a group of beautiful, talented, ambitious women, Eve (Meg Ryan) is attempting to juggle her life as a successful party planner and deal with her father's increasing mental illness. Lou (Walter Matthau) has never been a decent father, but he's all Eve has. Delivering him to a local hospital ward for observation, she emotionally prepares to lose him. While in a phone conversation with her older sister Georgia (Diane Keaton), a world-famous columnist and magazine editor, Eve has a fender-bender with a doctor in the hospital parking lot. Afraid that she'll lose her insurance if another claim is filed against her distracted, reckless driving habits, Eve not only has to worry about that on top of things, but try and convince one -- if not both -- of her sisters to come out to LA for moral support.

Her youngest sister Maddy (Lisa Kudrow) is a budding soap opera star who has never been able to get much attention in the family. Through a series of hang-ups, half-completed conversations, and memories of life immediately following their mother's abandonment of Lou (their mom is played by Cloris Leachman), the girls fight, love, and support one another through devastating loss. The movie really is made up of heart-wrenching performances. Ryan is always spunky but here has a deeper side, a more soulful approach as the responsible sister that reminded me very much of my mom in a time of recent loss in our family. That being said, if you have lost anyone in the last couple of years, you might not want to watch it, because it will bring back all the grief and memories of your experiences.

When this film first came out, it was a source of disappointment to a great many people who went under the preconceived notion that it was a comedy. It is, but with a healthy dose of melodrama mixed into it. Anyone who has lost a parent or other family member, who has spent time in a hospital, who has fought with their siblings while arrangements were made, and then clung together at the funeral, will know what Hanging Up is like. It's one of the most realistic portraits of family life and loss that I have ever seen. The emotions are real. The situations are real. The sorrows are real. It's almost painful to watch at times, because you feel so sorry for these women, desperately trying to control their emotions and not give in to the realization that even if he was a lousy father, he's the only one they have.

The content is more mild than is to be expected, and comes from foul language. GD is used a half dozen times, along with two-f-words, and countless abuses of God's name. The sisters hurl insults at one another, including b****. Lou is obsessed with talking about a certain part of John Wayne's anatomy, using coarse slang terms. ("P***er" is repeated a dozen or so times.) He pinches the backside of a nurse and makes a couple of suggestive remarks. A flashback has the girls coming home for Thanksgiving, only to find him in bed with a woman. She is dressed in a slip. When he goes missing from the hospital ward, Eve tells the nurse to check the beds of every single woman in the hospital.

Hanging Up was Walter Matthau's final film, and also the brain-child of Diane Keaton, who directed. There are many wonderful scenes, such as Maddie pawning off her sick dog on Eve, who then tries to give him pills without success, or a flour fight in the kitchen over Thanksgiving, but what really sticks is the message that you should stay connected to your family, but you don't have to be caught up in their individual craziness, and no one person should undertake a heavy burden alone.