Circle of Friends (1995)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I just watched this movie with my teen-aged daughter. We both enjoyed it, and it brought an opportunity to think and talk about teen-aged sexual matters, especially "first-time" sex.However, we did find an error in this Irish-Catholic movie, and that was in the opening scene where the three girls were receiving "Confirmation." In fact, they were receiving their First Holy Communion. This error was shocking! We expected to find it listed as a "goof" in the IMDb listing, but no goofs were given. Another thing we thought very strange was that Benny's parents looked so very old--old enough to be her grandparents. Considering the time line of the movie, most first-time parents in the '50s would have been young (20-ish, not 40-ish) when their first child was born. Maybe in the book it tells that the parents were older first-time parents.Overall, a very enjoyable film.

As a "stand alone" this film is quite passable. If, however, you are a fan of Maeve Binchy and have read the book, you will probably spend a good deal of the film comparing the two, and the film comes off unfavourably. Some of the differences are minor, but the ending is completely different. I have no intention of comparing the two endings here as I don't want to be a spoiler, suffice it to say that if you have read the book, the film ending is a major disappointment. I also think that Benny was totally miscast. That the Benny of the book is a big woman is relevant to the storyline, whereas Minnie Driver, although quite tall, can't be called big under any stretch of the imagination. The film characters seemed wooden to me in comparison with the book characters. However, if you're not into reading books, the film is worth watching.

Oh sure, I know he must be out there doing something. But I recently saw this for the 2nd time, the first time at a second run movie house and I just fell in love with movie again. Chris O'Donnell and Minnie Driver (what happened to HER?) have great (but not amazing) chemistry going between them, and throughout the movie I was also saying, "who is that weasely looking chap playing the father's assistant in the haberdashery shop?" Only to find out it was Alan Cummings! (blush). I did like the love story, but the whole pregnancy angle seemed a bit too forced, and the whole mystery being solved at the end in one full swoop was a bit much. Still, it was nice to see O'Donnell acting before he sold himself out and started doing dreadful movies.

SPOILERS HEREINI just caught this film last night on TV, purely by chance, and I guess with my low expectations it didn't disappoint but there were parts that did.It tells a sweet enough tale of three Irish college girlfriends and falling in love, and the central romance between Minnie Driver and Chris O'Donnell is well handled. There's enough chemistry there to illuminate the relationship.However, during the more dramatic parts of the story, I had quite a few complaints. While Driver's performance through the majority of the film was very convincing, she seemed very trite and almost cute during her break-up scenes and following the death of her father. The musical soundtrack as well wasn't very well handled to produce the most emotion. My female friends had given me the impression that this was the saddest movie they'd ever seen but I just found it nowhere near powerful enough. It is surely meant to be an emotionally charged film but the direction and the performances didn't do nearly enough to extract the feeling from it, and I felt like I was watching some street theatre or something because it was obvious what they were representing with their faces and body language, but there wasn't much acting involved at all.The second complaint is Alan Cumming's character. He's fine in the role, don't get me wrong, but it's such a stupid character. The story itself is realistic and the characters are empathetic and true-to-life, except this one. He's such a blatant caricature and left all conviction in the film for dead. I presume it's all from the book which I haven't read, but I really think an over-the-top character like that will always ruin a simple, sentimental romance such as this. They're far more suited to Roald Dahl books.But apart from those complaints it didn't really disappoint. It's simplistic and gentle-hearted and as such is ideal evening viewing as far as I can tell. ***/*****