Based on a Book

This family drama, based on a novel by Ellyn Bache, is overly familiar in its concentration of cracked secrets and family revelations all pouring down during a brief crisis. But it has a fine cast led by Susan Sarandon, and they make the whole enterpri... Read More

This family drama, based on a novel by Ellyn Bache, is overly familiar in its concentration of cracked secrets and family revelations all pouring down during a brief crisis. But it has a fine cast led by Susan Sarandon, and they make the whole enterprise a watchable affair. Sarandon plays a middle-aged mother of a brood of mostly grown sons. Suffering from empty-nest syndrome, she tends toward anxious dreams in which one or another of the boys is missing overseas. After having a nightmare that one--a Marine assigned to a Sinai peacekeeping force--has been hurt, word comes that a terrorist attack has indeed left his status in question. As the rest of the family gathers in the glare of fear--including Sarandon's estranged husband (Sam Shepard), suffering some form of (metaphorical) blindness--lots of unspoken things are said about old rivalries, ancient grievances, etc. It's all a bit thickly designed, but the likes of Robert Sean Leonard, Sean Astin, Marcia Gay Harden, Nick Stahl, and most of all Sarandon make it entirely palatable. --Tom Keogh

As the mother of seven boys, Mag Singer fears she will never have the career she dreams of. But she begins to re-evaluate her priorities after she learns that her troubled middle son is missing after the terrorist bombing of his Marine barracks in Beirut... Read More

As the mother of seven boys, Mag Singer fears she will never have the career she dreams of. But she begins to re-evaluate her priorities after she learns that her troubled middle son is missing after the terrorist bombing of his Marine barracks in Beirut. For three days, as the family awaits word of his fate, they are forced to come to terms with themselves and each other, and to rediscover the deep reservoir of love they once shared.