As I Lay Dying (2013)

Perfectly adorable

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

I never read Faulkner's classic by the same title, and from what I understand, I probably wouldn't have the patience for it anyway. My personal reading habits have a wide range of interests, from Westerns to Sci-Fi, but if any book is over 350 pages (and I don't care what it is) Oprah can go fawn over it.But I digress.'As I Lay Dying' brings to life many of the same near-primal struggles of day to day life that my grandfather used to occasionally tell stories about. The rough-hewn tone of the movie completely suspended my disbelief as all the cast mastered their roles in physical looks and attitudes.Particularly striking was Tim Nelson's portrayal of "Anse", the aging slack-jawed, bent over and backward minded Patriarch. Nelson, in fact, nails it so precisely he is barely recognizable from his many previous roles.Master make-up artist Kimberly Amacker and her crew very convincingly aged Nelson a good 30 years and 'removed' his teeth. It was an amazing transformation to behold. Ahna O'Reilly's "Dewey Dell" unfolds the age-old tale of probably the worst situation a young country girl of that era can be in: Pregnant and no husband. And no husband on the horizon, either.As the clan struggles through almost every disaster there is while transporting their dead mother's body, Dewey steals herself to the local pharmacies along the way every chance she gets in search of an unidentified drug that will abort her early pregnancy.We absolutely feel for and appreciate the extremely difficult time she has as an uneducated country girl trying to transmit in simple and cryptic language the nature of her problem. Her eyes absolutely plead for some compassion and sympathy, but she receives none. Evidently any kind of medical professional could expect to sentenced to life in prison for performing or assisting in abortions. Not to mention young girls facing banishment from their own families. Instead, poor Dewey is chided and debased further, only to resort to the most humiliating conditions available in order to purchase the drug.Considering the times, such a drug probably would have killed her as well, if not seriously compromised her health.The good old days they were not.So why only a rating of six? As with several other reviewers, the ubiquitous split screen ruined it for me. I found it extremely distracting. It effectively cut-down on the full views of such potentially beautiful panoramas and scenery reducing them to mostly head-shots of character's facial reactions. I cringed every time it appeared.Aside from that, a great story.Perhaps we can look forward to a re-work of a more traditional presentation in the future.

Because of the low rating of 5.5 I nearly decided not to watch this movie. I would have missed a good movie had I paid too much attention to ratings and not given this movie a chance. It reminded me of the part in Lonesome Dove where one of the characters in that movie honors his promise to carry and deliver Gus's body in a wooden coffin a thousand miles to be buried back in his home in Texas. In this movie, we have a wife and mother who lived out her life to die naturally and the ordeal that a poor Mississippi family endures in getting her body back to where it is supposed to be buried. I found the actors to be well cast in their roles and I highly recommend this movie.

Beware - spoilers below!!in this movie you will see - 1. maw laying in her death bed babbling on about how she hates her sons (and other stuff) 2. one son is outside the window to the room his maw is in sawing wood in a rain storm to make a coffin to put her in - she's still alive at this point! 3. they put her dead body upside down in the coffin - (head where feet should be) 4. they drop the coffin while taking it to the wagon 5. they cross a creek swollen with ragging water and the bridge is out - maw's coffin floats away down stream and a fallen tree smacks into one of the sons and smashes his leg. 6. they put the injured son on top of maws coffin (after retrieving it from the creek) 7. its summer and maws wet rotting carcass begins to stink and the buzzards follow them 8. they spend the night at somebodies house and burn the barn down (i never did understand why because at this point in the movie i'm laffing way too much). 9. every little town they go to the daughter (i think she's a daughter) ask for an abortion (her brother is father) 10. the rotting corpus stinks so much they get chased out of town 11. the broken leg guy is all infected so they put cement on the leg!! (the leg gets sawed off later) 12. throughout this entire story the half-wit rotted teeth paw is constantly yelling at his kids to 'respect yo' maw'! 13. they finally reach the cemetery where maw wanted to be buried and they toss the coffin into a hole they dig with borrowed spades. 14. the pregnant daughter gets banged by a pharmacist (his treatment for the abortion) 15. and paw goes somewhere in town and finds himself a new wife and everybody piles back into the wagon and heads back home.This is such a bad movie i have had more fun telling people about it and how funny it is if you can sit through it - a good mixed drink helps!

This film is flawed from the very first shot. It's so ironical as Franco the director, puts his choices above that of the actors. In a piece like this, character should come first. He places his horrendous split screen first. I'm curious to know whether this was the intended manner or whether the original edit was so lackluster he tried to beef it up with split screen. I'm not against that method per se, but in a period piece like this, especially given the story, you have to be able to relate to one character at least. He jumps in without bothering to connect us emotionally to anyone.It feels, and is amateurish. Its surprising, given his depth of performances over a long period in all types of films, yet here he makes mistakes from the most inexperienced of first time directors. With his record, it's hard to imagine how he could have stuffed it up so badly. Perhaps he wasn't taking enough notice on set. It's actually boring and that is the worst sin a director can commit.His choice of subject matter is commendable, but it belongs in the hands of a much more experienced director, something he will come to regret if he hasn't done so already.There are a few decent shots but the editing wounds it. (Much to the horror of the cinematographer). The split screen comes in for the final kill. Alternatively, the same intrusive method also takes your attention away from what is poorly executed scenes, complete with bad acting. Unfortunate for the other actors who try. Franco has to take the fall for all of it. It really is poorly directed. However, he is famous enough to survive it. For now. Other actors have tried directing and failed and continued on with successful acting careers. It's like they need to try it on for once, to appease their egos. Directing is not something someone can simply adopt. It's a very specific skill set. If James is to be a director then he really needs to go back to the beginning and start learning the craft, like for example, Ben Affleck. Ben was never a great actor, but at least he took his time coming to directing and chose the right subject matter. You start simply and work your way up. Tarantino didn't start with Kill Bill or Inglorious Bastards. He began simply. Franco has expressed an interest in tackling Bukowski's Ham on Rye. The man clearly appreciates good literature (and writes also) but if he's going to make films out of such important work then he better be able to do a much better job than he's done here. I like the man, but Francly (intentional), I was embarrassed for him.