Either the producers behind Used People are incredible salespeople or there was once something in this screenplay which attracted the amazing cast that proliferates this film. Unfortunately, whatever charm may once have been inherent in the story fails to make its way to the screen in the end product.The story centers on a NYC Jewish matriarch Shirley MacLaine, who is taken aback following her husband's funeral when Italian charmer Marcello Mastroianni introduces himself as a friend of the deceased who has loved her from afar for years. Around this rather astounding declaration, MacLaine and Mastroianni's extended family spins in their own assorted subplots. MacLaine has two daughters - Kathy Bates and Marcia Gay Harden - with whom she has embattled relationships with. Her young grandson, convinced that the spirit of his grandfather is protecting him, runs about doing one dangerous stunt after another. Meanwhile, her mother Jessica Tandy and her best friend Sylvia Sidney kvetch from the sidelines. Everything gets tied up in a neat little bow in time for the U.S. moon landing.The film is obviously trying to be something in the same vein as Moonstruck, but its fails spectacularly and only increases appreciation of that earlier film. The bulk of the film's problems stem from the screenplay and the characters. Did there really have to be this many people? Bates is a great actress, but her character is too generic. By contrast, Harden is so off-the-wall that no scene with her can possibly be taken seriously. Harden spends the film donning one cinematic disguise after another - one moment she is Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate, in another scene she is Bonnie Parker from Bonnie and Clyde, etc. This is obviously a woman with something pathological wrong with her and the fact that almost no one in the film addresses it is disturbing.Tandy and Sidney are fun as the old-timers, but they are given limited screen time. And even with that it is hard to dismiss the notion that Tandy is miscast and Sidney should have been given her role instead.Most damning of all is that it is impossible to root for a romance between MacLaine and Mastroianni. I usually enjoy MacLaine, but she is playing a cast-iron shrew here. She comes off as an utterly joyless woman who gets her jollies by picking other people apart - especially those unwilling or unable to defend themselves. When the good-natured Bates finally summons the courage to escape her mother's home and malignant influence, she should be given a moment where she lays out how MacLaine has denigrated her. Instead, somehow MacLaine gets a foolish rant about how everything impacts her - revealing the utter selfishness in an unlikable character. We can see no reason why anyone with an iota of intelligence would fall for such a charmless person - and this ends up making the otherwise charming Mastroianni seem either delusional or insane. If we have nothing invested in the romantic central pairing, then the film can only be considered an abject failure.This is the kind of film where literally every character on screen is given a manufactured crisis that can then be solved magically by the climax. MacLaine will find love with Mastroianni, Tandy and Sidney will find satisfaction in their twilight years, Harden will learn to put away her childish game and become a mother to her needy son. It is the kind of film where Bates has barely left MacLaine's sphere of influence to launch a new life across the country, before she has returned a "success" - which means she shows up at a family function with a new hairstyle.A really brazen and shallow film that would work far better as a low-rent sitcom.

This story is one of family love and tolerance. It reaches into touching depths that goodness and unconditional love are far more important than self and ego. This love story is very refreshing as it is based on mutual appreciation and admiration. Joe is looking for for a lady that is dedicated and Pearl needs his sincere caring. The movie projects characters that can be liked regardless of their faults. Very well cast as each actor seems to bring their characters alive as if they are a real people one might know and want to know. It is a movie that gives a new message each time it is viewed. Watch this movie and enjoy the tenderness.

Admittedly, I LOVE films about relationships. Perhaps this is because I am a therapist.This film is not only about finding love, but also about waking up to love that is already there. The characters grow and change in this film and if it seems uneven, this may be why. When the character of Pearl tells us early on that she never did anything she wanted in life, you doubt her ability to break away from her old life, but break away she does, carrying her mother, daughters and grandchildren with her.This film has a happy ending, but it is not all neatly tucked away in pretty packages. If you like films that say something, try this one on for size. Films of similar flavor are "Wrestling Ernest Hemingway" "Harold and Maude" and "Moonstruck" .

If you like the "Moonstruck" kind of film - a many-layered, multi-charactered tumble of the comic and the tragic (with plenty of shouting and raging) romping to a happy ending - you'll love this. It's packed, it's fast-moving, it's funny, it's wonderfully acted - above all, it's human. The elderly, gentle Mastroianni still charms and delights, though it's a pity they challenged his English with so many difficult lines. As a counterbalance, Shirley Maclean is a Fury again (cf. "Steel Magnolias"), to be smoothed and softened only by the friction with daughter Bibby (Kathy Bates) and the dedication of her new suitor. True, the story has its creaks and groans - what better to road to a woman's heart than to save her grandson from certain death? - but exuberance carries the day, we are swept along and are happy to rejoice with the rest of the cast in the Grand Finale. Of course, if you didn't like "Moonstruck" . . .