Steel Magnolias

You can tell from the start that this was adapted from the stage. The dialogue--for the most part--has the same earnest theatrics as your average play, and honestly it works fairly well in a knock-off Tennessee Williams kind of way.

And the stage adaptation becomes even more evident when it shows itself to be a comedy tear-jerker.

And, as I said, that's fine. It has pro-talent and it's always nice to bring the stage into your living room from time to time....

"Steel Magnolias" is an emotionally barren experience throughout as it attempts to emulate the feeble "Beaches" (1988) and it largely accomplishes the same startling underachievement as that memorably lacklustre film. This time around we are introduced (or perhaps that should be we are subjected) to an assortment of constantly wittering women warbling on about a wealth of risible nonsense we are supposed to care about (or perhaps that should be find entertaining and funny), but in the main it is none of these things which is hardly surprising since much of it is aimed squarely at what will pro...

Ok, so it's a film largely about women - but I still reckon Tom Skerritt's innovative way of stopping crows nesting in his tree is one of the best moments of this otherwise really quite sentimental drama. Things all centre around "Shelby" (Julia Roberts) who is about to be married to her sweetheart "Jackson" (Dylan McDermott) and so they are all frequenting the beauty salon of the cheery "Truvy" (Dolly Parton). Now the joy isn't quite abounding here as her mother "M'Lynn" (Sally Field) knows that her daughter is not the healthiest and after a seizure in the hairdressers we sense that childbear...