Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Holstra Boring, long, and too preachy.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

De-illusionist I watched Ironweed back in 80's,5times on screen.Mainly because I am a big fan of Tom Waits..But something inside this very depressing movie caught then-Student's mind. Now I can watch with DVD,and knew many supporting actor is gone now. Some of them were already old age back then.Lots of sparkle came from those supporting actors. You can see younger day's Nathan Lane (well,Same Nathan who is on "Modern Family")giving the scene great impression. Tom Waits gave the role pure innocence. Not only Lead Actors,Many people wrote,Those supporting actors gave "Ironweed" magic. There's something not only depressed,something pure.

jwardww Watching Streep's creation of Helen Archer is a complete joy, from her poignant silences to her gemuetlich cabaret turn, humorous, tragic, moving but never maudlin. The character puts me in mind of that other sublime derelict from opera, Kundry, for whom it would seem Meryl has done workshops throughout her career. In addition to her Helen Archer, We have her femme fatale, Jill, in Manhattan, Madeline Ashton, a woman cursed with a Kundry-like longevity, like that of Emilia Marti from The Makropoulos Case, albeit actively sought and dearly paid for. Don't get me wrong, I loved the performance of Katarina Dalayman in the Met's most recent production of Parsifal, but, during my second viewing, not in the opera house, but in an HD theater, it became clear that one really needs an actress as mindful as Streep to make this spectacular acting opportunity realized to full satisfaction. She should take off for a year to work on it. And her voice. Yes, she will be required to sing high B and low B on the same word, Lachte. That vocal firework explodes as Kundry describes the ancient sin that occasioned her self-imposed curse. It has kept her alive over a thousand years in many guises: Herodias, Gundryggia and many personalities the audience never hears about. Now in the employ of Klingsor, she is required to tempt and bring down Parsifal, yet another vulnerable protector of the Grail. Streep would have amazing growth potential in that second act. For here she needs to communicate infinite wisdom, dumbness, innocence, guilt, power and impotence simultaneously. In the third act she is without a single line or note to perform, and yet a central character transformed as much as Parsifal himself. I'm sure she could meet the challenge of performing in silence with impressive creativity. As in all great scripts, this libretto is open ended in a way that would afford a freedom of interpretation any actor would sign on for. She could pull it off vocally, too. Back in 1977, before Broadway singers were miked, she did Lillian Holiday in Happy End and was a knockout vocally. In fact, one was surprised later when she chose to do non-musical roles. It was an operatic voice. Yes, 37 years have passed. But a Parsifal movie would not require the vocal heft required to fill the 4,000 seat Met opera. Moreover, computers do amazing things these days to add and subtract age. Yes, of course, it's four and a half hours long and Wagner, so it wouldn't exactly pay for itself, but would probably end up being definitive with the involvement of such an artist.

runamokprods Given the weak print and media reviews, I was shocked at how moving and poetic this portrait of street bums in the 30s was. Streep and Nicholson are both magnificent, but the whole supporting cast is very good. It has flaws – it's a little overlong, there the occasional heavy handed moment. But it's also a deeply moving portrait of lost souls trying to find meaning in a very cold world. My one big frustration is the US DVD - for some reason it was released full screen (4:3) and not in the original 1:85. That might have been forgivable if the DVD had been released years ago, when that was a more common practice, but 'Ironweed' - a visually stunning film - was released in 2009! So there is no excuse for this inaccurate presentation.Update: There is now - finally - a perfectly decent blu-ray available from Olive. Correct aspect ratio, and a nice, if not amazing transfer.

Michael Neumann Does anyone else find odd the idea of a multi-million dollar, star-driven melodrama pretending to recreate the lives of penniless, alcoholic vagrants in the Great Depression? Judging from its subject matter (not to mention the punishing length and leisurely pace) this is clearly a film aspiring toward loftier goals than mere box office commerce. William Kennedy's screenplay, adapted from his own Pulitzer Prize winning novel, is perhaps too faithful to its source (the entire book could probably be read in less time than it takes to watch the film), and the dramatic impact of his story is handicapped by celebrity casting. Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep both give (typically) vital performances, but our awareness of them as movie stars keeps the joyless reality of the scenario at arms length, where it's easy to admire their skill as actors without having to get involved in the plight of their characters. Some rich period detail, a lot of verbal exposition, and an atmosphere of despair so vivid you could slice it with a knife add up to a film with no shortage of prestige, but not much in the way of entertainment.