WIDOWS' PEAK
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1995 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
WIDOWS' PEAK is a quirky little Irish comedy and mystery from the director (John Irvin) of Turtle Diary. It features Mia Farrow as the mysteriously angry, local Irish woman who is convinced that the mysterious new English/American stranger, played by Natasha Richardson is "up to murder".
The town is populated by rich widows who live on a hill nicknamed WIDOWS' PEAK. Joan Plowright plays the matriarch of the women. All of the poor folks live down in the town except for poor widow Farrow who mysteriously lives on the peak. Adrian Dunbar is Plowright's son, and he falls head over hills in love with the new stranger.
The movie is pure fluff. It is rated PG. They said one mild four letter word I think to avoid getting the kiss of death of a G rating which most theatergoers thinks means that adults must be accompanied by a child under the age of 6 to attend and must turn off their brain on entering.
Mia Farrow and Natasha Richardson are both a delight to watch. Just quirky enough but never overacting. Lots of great Irish scenery in the movie so if you get bored, just ignore the actors and watch the cinematography (Ashley Rowe) of the Irish countryside and town.
There is frankly not much in the movie. The mystery is fun, but pretty lightweight. It has a nice ending which is sort of easy to guess. The script (Hugh Leonard) is lightweight but with a few good laughs.
WIDOWS' PEAK runs about right at 1:41. It is correctly rated PG and kids over about 8 may like it. I give it a mild thumbs up and rate it ** 1/2. It never offends, rarely bores, and is a pleasant diversion. A relaxing, simple, feel good movie.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEWED WRITTEN ON: May 28, 1994
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews