CriticSociety- film reviews

Review

Anywhere but Here

Director

Wayne Wang

Year

1999

Rating

Reviewed by

a.k.a. Jacinda

Review date

Monday, April 16, 2001

Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman are definitely some of the finest actresses around. What kept me from seeing Anywhere but here in the first place was my dislike for Stepmom, which was far too shallow to capture my interest. Another heart-wrecking movie focusing on a mother-daughter relationship sounded too hard to take. How happy was I to find out that Anywhere but here is totally different in its tone. Wayne Wang manages to keep the perfect balance between hard and good feelings. I love movies that evoke forgotten feelings and this one reminds me of what life feels like for a teenage girl.

The movie starts like a road-movie with Adele (Susan Sarandon) and her daughter Ann (Natalie Portman) going all the way from Bay City to Beverly Hills. We get to see the story through the eyes of Ann, who simply hates her mother for being the most extravagant woman she knows. Most of all she hates Adele for not granting her a normal life. When they arrive in Beverly Hills their journey turns out to be a total disaster. None of their dreams come true which gets them to live under poor circumstances. But they are still together and there is no running away for Ann.

In the course of the movie there are uncountable touching scenes that bring the two characters closer to each other. While Portman has to deal with her own teenage problems she also has to care for her mother, who seems not to have grown up until the end of the movie. Susan Sarandon is definitely a fine actress that gives a stunning and believable performance in this movie. However Natalie Portman steals most of the scenes with her unbelievable screen presence. She hasn’t done that many post-León movies that I would recall to be special – this one definitely is.

While Ann wants to be anywhere but with Adele you just want to stay with these women.

A quiet movie about true feelings!

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