In this gentle drama, screen legend Gena Rowlands plays a widowed mom who learns to live again, thanks to the influence of a lovable small boy, and befriends locals like hellcat neighbor Marisa Tomei and affable trucker Gerard Depardieu. As you'd expect, Rowlands' performance is expertly understated, while the movie has a sweetness that's magnified by the fact that Rowlands is first-time director Nick Cassavetes' mom. But there's really not an awful lot going on in Unhook The Stars: The sympathetically drawn characters evolve through the course of the movie, but the ambiguous, choose-your-own-ending conclusion feels more like a copout than the profound moment it's supposed to be. It's a nice little dramatic diversion—not at all the uproarious comedy promised on the video box—but it's too slack and marginal to warrant recommendation.
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