CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

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

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

SnoopyStyle Edna Buxton (Illeana Douglas) is a steel heiress from Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. She wins a local singing contest in 1958 with a promised contract. However it's a struggle to get anywhere when producer Joel Milner (John Turturro) takes pity on her. She becomes successful as a songwriter renamed as Denise Waverly. She later marries songwriter Howard Caszatt (Eric Stoltz) and they have a girl together. Joel hires brit songwriter Cheryl Steed (Patsy Kensit) who would become her friend. More personal and professional challenges follow. She divorces Howard. She follows Jay Phillips (Matt Dillon) to California.There are some good moments but the movie is trying to cover too much of this character's life. For example, I like the fluffy pop singer played by Bridget Fonda who turns out to be gay struggling in her private life as she hides it in her public life. Of course, she comes in and then fairly quickly, she's gone. It becomes like a long string of random fictional events happening to a character that isn't particularly compelling. I do like Illeana Douglas but she's not really the lead actress type. She's a great character actress but she can't anchor a movie like this. She and she alone has to lead the audience through the various characters that come in and out of her life. She needs to be a bigger actress. Allison Anders has written a lot of things for Waverly to deal with but as a director, she doesn't have the style (or the money) to make this cinematic. The music isn't particularly memorable but they fit the era. Certainly this movie could use some great songs.

Maddyclassicfilms Grace of My Heart is directed by Allison Anders, it is loosely based on the life of real life singer and songwriter Carole King.It's shockingly underrated and features some brilliant songs. The film stars Illeana Douglas, John Tuturro and Matt Dillon.Beginning in the late 1950's, aspiring singer Edna Buxton(Illeana Douglas)is entering a singing competition and does not sing what her mother (Christina Pickles) tells her to.Edna wins the competition and gets a recording contract.Moving to New York she meets famous song manager Joel Millner(John Tuturro), he helps her on the road to stardom and becomes her lifelong friend and confidant.Changing her name to Denise Waverley, she writes a number of hits and becomes a famous and much sought after name in the music industry.She faces a lot of personal tragedies but she overcomes all the hardship and tries to get her life back on track.Also starring Eric Stoltz as her co-writer boyfriend and Christine Pickles as her mum. Grace of My Heart is a beautiful and touching film filled with great music. Some of my favourite songs are Born To Love That Boy and Living In Another World.If you haven't heard of this one try and find it on DVD, it's well worth watching and is filled with fantastic performances. This is a film that deserves to be much better known.

lastliberal It's Martin Scorsese day. he didn't direct this one, but produced it, and it's a winner. After 3 and a half hours of Bob Dylan, I was enchanted by the songs here. The soundtrack is a real tribute to love in all it's forms and fashions.Writer/Director Allison Anders, who started accumulating award nominations from her first movies (Border Radio; Sugar Town; Gas, Food Lodging) gives us a beautifully flowing story of a singer trying to break into the business, but settling for a career as a songwriter. It featured a lot of singers from the era, including one inspired by Lesley Gore, a favorite of mine, and who helped write songs for the movie.Illeana Douglas (Stir of Echoes, Happy, Texas, Cape Fear) was magnificent as the "Carol King"-inspired lead, as was John Turturro (The Big Lebowski, Fear X) as her manager.If you like the music of the sixties, and you want to see the first time a woman's water breaks on film, then this is it. A good use of your time.

Woodyanders The chronically under-appreciated Illeana Douglas gives a characteristically glowing, winsome, totally spot-on performance as aspiring singer/songwriter Denise Waverly, who during a very turbulent and wildly eventful fifteen year time span goes from being a frustrated, creatively stifled behind-the-scenes magic maker to eventually acquiring the clout and courage to branch out on her own to sing her own material in a strong, assertive, independent female voice. Learning under the expert tutelage of cranky, eccentric, misanthropic Brill Building impresario Joel Millner (a fabulously freaky John Turturro) and enduring a steady succession of unsuccessful romantic relationships with footloose, insecure, insensitive bohemian songwriter Howard Castatt (a perfectly jerky Eric Stoltz), conventional married disc jockey John Murray (a typically fine Bruce Davison), and brilliantly innovative, but paranoid and temperamental surf-rock composer Jay Phillips (a splendidly spaced-out Matt Dillon), the extremely intelligent and resilient Denise uses her bittersweet life experiences as prime fodder for her ever evolving and emotionally charged songs.Flavorfully documenting rock music's growth from effervescent girl group pop to trippy psychedelic experimentation to intensely personal singer/songwriter confessional tunes, Allison Anders' simply sensational feature, loosely based on the real-life exploits of Carole King (besides the obviously King-influenced Denise, most of the other characters are clearly composites of various actual rock people as well) and executive produced by Martin Scorsesse, crackles with all the joyous vibrancy and infectious exuberance of the marvelously dynamic and exciting music scene its set in. Anders' deft, assured direction and sharply perceptive script, both keenly tuned in to the mercurial zeitgeist of the 60's and the then burgeoning women's right movement, works as both invigorating rock music history and inspirational pro-feminist tract alike. The splendidly catchy and melodious Larry Klein-produced soundtrack, Jean Yves Escoffier's smooth, agile, gliding cinematography, a story which manages to be genuinely touching without ever lapsing into mawkishly contrived sentiment, an absorbing, minutely detailed backstage glimpse at the pop music songwriting and recording process, and the uniformly superlative acting -- Patsy Kensit as Denise's longtime songwriting partner and loyal gal pal Cheryl Steed, Bridget Fonda as awkward closeted lesbian pop singer Kelly Porter, and David Clennon as a flaky hippie shrink are especially terrific -- round out this positively radiant and utterly delightful gem.