Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is a comedy drama or dramedy movie that stars Sandra Bullock and Ashley Judd together with Ellen Burstyn,Fionnula Flanagan,James Garner,Maggie Smith and Shirley Knight.Screenwriter Callie Khouri makes her directorial debut with this adaptation of a pair of popular novels by author Rebecca Wells namely:the novel with the same title and its prequel collection of short stories entitled,Little Altars Everywhere.Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood starts when Sidda Lee Walker,a New York playwright,opens a can of emotional worms with her estranged, alcoholic mother, Vivi.She discusses her painful childhood and particularly Vivi's less-than-enviable mothering skills in a Time magazine article. The eccentric Louisiana drama queen Vivi has already been barred from her daughter's wedding to her fiancé, Connor so the article sends her into a rage. Coming to the rescue of the relationship are Necie,Caro, and Teensy, a trio of bickering women, who, along with Vivi, formed a secret society of feminist empowerment and friendship 60 years earlier that they dubbed the "Ya-Ya Sisterhood." The Ya-Yas kidnap Sidda and bring her home to Louisiana, where they reveal to Sidda via a carefully maintained scrapbook her mother's painful past,which makes her get to know more about her mother which make an effect to the rapprochement between mother and daughter.Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood explores many tragedies in life such as alcoholism,parental conflict,intrusion to another person's life or privacy,and child abuse but it was handled in comical manner.I don't think that these serious and tragic issues does not need to be addressed in laughable manner.Instead of handling it through great character development and brilliant plot especially in female relationship,the film becomes an exercise of comedy with a few dramatic scenes thrown in.The cast are too talented but put into waste in it as the characters don't get our sympathy.Rather,we get annoyed with the silly actions they take in life.In summary,the film was a bad combination of drama and comedy.

I gotta say, when I first read the reviews of this movie never having seen it before, I thought that the reviewers were being typically chauvinistic patriarchal drones and giving it such low scores because it was a movie about women, and they did not appreciate movies about women. I thought they simply could not understand the beauty of such a multi-generational film. I thought they were just being jerks.I have since learned that they were right.This movie IS awful. It did not have to be awful--in fact, it ought to have been good. Many of the actresses in this film are excellent and are stars in their own right; the supporting cast of men looked solid.The acting was good. That was the only redeemable bit of the movie.The fact that Sandra Bullock can be watchable even in the dregs like this movie speaks more to her talent than the movie's success.If there is one theme however that films "about women" insist upon time and time again, however, it is that looks can be deceiving.The direction of this film was terrible. The editing was worse.The core story of this film--abusive mother becomes alcoholic in her old age after having raised a bipolar, far-too-straitlaced daughter.They yell, they scream, they have conflicts and they resolve them.Now, this movie could have been made in a new and exciting way. It could have been great. It could have really called our mothers to task for using alcohol as a coping mechanism for all and sundry, and it could have called ourselves to task for using work and lack of a social life as a way to avoid the past. It could have opened our eyes to the ways we fall into whatever relationship opportunities present themselves rather than make truly genuine and thus difficult decisions.It could have; it did not.The movie spent half its time in flashbacks, which has never particularly been a favorite story-telling mechanism of mine. It spent its entire middle engaged in fairly useless fighting between the main character's mother and fiancée and father, which wasted time. The flashbacks' significance or impact on Siddalee were rarely explained, leaving us to guess as to Why We Should Care. For those of us who did not grow up in the South, the sudden entrance into a way of life we had no familiarity with whatsoever was jolting, to say the least. There was little-to-no context given to any of the revelations meant to explain it all. There was too much the rest of the time.Meanwhile, no one stopped drinking, Siddalee never got the opportunity to actually confront her mother regarding her mother's abuses, and Siddalee's father never left the woman who tortured him for so long.Meaning, no one ever got the opportunity to be human--instead they became caricatures in a story 'bout how Forgiveness Heals All.This is a story about crazy white people doing crazy white people things and never acknowledging or even seeming to realize that the things they were doing were completely 100% insane and pointless.Nice job, y'all, and I DO mean that sarcastically. Nice job.

I had postponed watching 'Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood' because I thought it would be just another melodramatic glossy film like 'Steel Magnolias'. I finally got myself to see it last night. After all how bad could a movie, with a cast that includes Ellen Burstyn, Sandra Bullock, Maggie Smith, Fionnula Flanagan, James Garner and Shirley Knight, be? Now I can say that 'Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood' did not disappoint.First of all, this is a performance oriented film. It is the acting by every single actor that makes this film stand above others. The movie has some great one-liners that are wonderfully delivered by the actors. Ellen Burstyn, Ashley Judd, Maggie Smith, Sandra Bullock, Fionnula Flanagan, Shirley Knight, Angus MacFadyen and James Garner are superb. Their line delivery and knack for comedy and/or subtle intensity is excellent.I found the timeline to be a bit inconsistent. The art direction in the 30s setting is brilliant. Detail is given to the costumes, makeup, gestures and language of the actors. However, the present day, which is supposed to be set in the 70s doesn't give that feel at all. I also would have liked to see more backstory on Teensy, Caro and Necie. After all, the story is about their sisterhood.Even though flawed, it's an interesting study on relationships. The balance of comedy and intensity is well done and it avoids being the 'tearjerker melodrama' that 'Steel Magnolias' is.

Better than I had expected, but still a problem.I found a lot of this to be dreamy romantic. There was an exception which jarred, though. How Sandra's mum's belief system disorder was shown to be central. The comments by the priest.If one has been in that sort of situation, then one knows that the portrayal has a truth, while also being misleading to outsiders. The priest is made to show something that, in reality, comes from all sorts of directions in that culture, or its equivalents. Those outside of that culture gradually carry out that priest role, too.A fairly small point within the context of the story, but in this tit for tat world with its foundations rooted in intolerance this seems to me to be an important point to make.The solution, for me, was to note that in this story, and such as Sacred Hearts 1995, there are several Catholics involved, most not showing these sorts of symptoms. They are just mangled to the extent that normal people are. Ouch. There are stories where all the players are mangled, but this is not one.Apart from that, better than expected.