Two Weeks

Sally's Field Day as a Dying Mother Surrounded by Shallow Characters and Forced Humor
The humor is way too forced, superficial and well-trodden to add the well-intentioned black comedy elements this otherwise bittersweet soap opera needs, but this 2007 film offers a vanity-free Sally Field giving a powerhouse performance as Anita Bergman, the dying mother of four grown children. The movie's title refers to the amount of time her character is expected to live before succumbing to ovarian cancer. With the clock ticking, the four children gather at her North Carolina home from different parts of the country and respond differently to the imminent tragedy. Directed and written by Steve Stockman as a series of vignettes, the characterizations represent different archetypes, and the actors are left to flesh them out to some human dimension. The results of their efforts are variable.

Affecting an unrecognizable American accent, Ben Chaplin fares the poorest as eldest brother Keith, an LA-based filmmaker whose sarcastic jokes are meant to shield him from feelings of...

A suprisingly good balance of comedy and drama.
This genre tends to be hit or miss in that it's very hard to create a credible drama with humorous elements. This one nails it quite well.

Recent endeavors into this genre have left me feeling very suspicious of them and the disastrous Running With Scissors pretty much nailed the coffin shut for me. Earlier tries that I can recall that were quite good were Terms of Endearment and Steel Magnolias. This film, Two Weeks, like the two previous mentioned films, deals with family relations and death and to my surprise handled both with great insight and realism that is laced with gallows-like humor.

The story about a dying mother, excellently portrayed by the ever reliable and incredibly youthful Sally Field, who is predominately cared for by her...

Death as an Exodus and an Epiphany
TWO WEEKS may put a lot of viewers off as it deals confrontationally with the issues of death and dying and yet finds the very human humor that always serves as a relief sidebar in stories (and life incidents) such as this. Steve Stockman wrote, directed and produced this little film and his inspiration and efforts are well served by a fine ensemble cast. It is a story about dying and the effects the finality of that event have on a family that has dispersed in different directions life.

Anita Bergman (a phenomenally effective Sally Field) is under hospice care as she faces her last days of dying from gastrointestinal cancer. Knowing that she has little time left she calls upon her four children to return home to North Carolina for goodbyes. Her children are a mixed lot: Keith (Ben Chaplin) is a Zen-influenced California man who has decided to video his mother for posterity; Barry (Thomas Cavanagh) is a workaholic who attempts to piece together time for this inconvenient...

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