Cady's Take:

She’s So Lovely is sure to provoke strong feelings of loathing and contempt for the protagonists. How then is it possible to recommend the film? Because, despite their horribly flawed and occasionally despicable natures, they share one redeeming quality: they love each other truly, madly and deeply. It is true that love conquers all.

When a lustful neighbor rapes Mo, Eddie takes off gun in hand to make the world a better place. Instead he ends up in a mental hospital. Flash forward ten years. Maureen divorces him and marries a successful businessman played by John Travolta. They build a perfect family together, with a beautiful home and three well-mannered young daughters. One of which is Eddies. Maureen and Joey have the American dream, but does it really mean anything? And is true love just another form of insanity?

Joey is stable and worships the ground Mo wavers on, but Eddie's due to be released and Joey fears losing the woman he loves to a loser like Eddie. In the last half hour of this movie you will be sitting on the edge of your couch desperately trying to figure out just what is going to happen! I won’t give anything away- but I must leave you with my favorite line of this movie…when Joey pulls out a gun to impress upon Eddie how determined he is to keep Maureen, Eddie’s buddy - the ever laconic Harry Dean Stanton – suggests that Joey put the piece away because "it’s not that kind of party."

I refuse to dislike any movie with John Travolta in it – purely on principle. He is particularly funny in “She’s So Lovely” because you don’t really like him until you realize all of a sudden that you do! At the same time those characters you did like you start to not like so much….that is the way “She’s So Lovely” turns you around and around and around from beginning to end. “She’s So Lovely” has an improvisational feel to it, which speaks volumes about the quality of the actors.

Eddie (Penn) and his wife Maureen (Robin Wright Penn) are a hard-luck couple madly in love, living in a dive, and spending their days trying to get drunker than they did the day before. Every time I see Sean Penn I am reminded of what a fantastic actor he really is; I first fell in love with him when he played the slimy lawyer David Kleinfeld in “Carlito’s Way” opposite Al Pacino. Sean Penn dedicates himself to character in a way that is reminiscent of Marlon Brando. Although Eddie and Maureen are helpless alcoholics they are truly tender and in love with one another; these people are not unhappy at all in fact – just drunk. When Eddie goes to jail Maureen finds a new life with Joey (Travolta) but – fast-forward ten years – Eddie gets out of jail and Joey knows the end is near for his marriage.

The last act of “She’s So Lovely” is chaotic and fresh and completely unexpected. Watching the dynamics between Eddie, Maureen, and Joey is entertaining and the supporting cast is superb. Debi Mazar (L.A. Law) and Harry Dean Stanton (Pretty in Pink) have small but necessary character roles. Overall I think “She’s So Lovely” is lovely; not a great movie but a good one. The choice that Maureen makes at the end of the movie defines the tone of the entire film – and I think prevents “She’s So Lovely” from being inconsequential and allows it to fulfill its potential.