Bardlerx Strictly average movie

PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

sijoe22 Starts off dull, and ends that way, too. In between, not a heckuva lot happens either.Girl has been estranged from her writer father for years, and sees a chance to make money off him, pays him an awkward visit, which last 2/3 of movie, and then, well, like I said, not much happens.Actually, movie had some funny parts, NEITHER involving the main characters, but involved her father's living arrangements. Now THAT was rather humorous, I found.Lead character girl, while not a sleazebag, was very unlikable, and not the type of person you'd root for, nor even care if her part ended twenty minutes after movie started.Waste of time, and would NEVER see it again.

edwagreen Often a very brooding film with characters who appear lifeless and just reciting their lines.Basically, it's the story of a writer who finds inspiration to continue his work after a visit from his daughter. Of course, she has a motive for visiting-collecting money if she can secure the love letters her dad wrote to her now deceased mother.The films just feels depressing and to me all the characters were stilted including Will Ferrell, who for a change acts in a dramatic role.dEd Harris is completely unrecognizable as the father. He looks like a flower child out of the 1960s with that long-white hair.Just like the winter, you will be glad when this wintry film passes.

lewiskendell Ah, another tale of a lost, disaffected young person that fruitlessly tries to fill their empty life with empty sex and drugs, and the family dynamics that led them to become that way. You know how these stories go. By the end, there's always some kind of acceptance and catharsis, and the characters end up with better relationships than when they started. Since most family dramas begin and end in somewhat the same manner, it's that middle journey that makes or breaks them, for me. How and why do the characters change?Winter Passing largely skips right over the how and why. For 90% of the movie Zooey Deschanel's and Ed Harris's characters are one way, and then in the last ten minutes they are suddenly completely different. I was so confused that I went back to check and see if I had unknowingly missed some crucial plot points or character development, but I hadn't. The viewer is actually expected to believe that these characters undergo profound and drastic changes as a result of about two brief conversations and a hospital visit. It's like they took a vague idea of a plot, and then filled in the runtime with melancholy gazing out of windows and lots of slow cigarette smoking. As for the other two main characters, they never really contributed anything of substance to the story. I suppose Amelia Warner's character was included to provide some initial friction for Reese and offer her another insight into her father's personality, and she looked so beautiful doing it that I'm willing to cut her some slack. But Will Ferrell's character was completely unnecessary. All he did was add forced quirkiness to a movie that absolutely did not need it. It didn't even fit the tone, and his sub-plot was a pointless way to pad out the running time.I didn't hate Winter Passing, I just thought that its story needed a lot more thought, focus, and fleshing out. It feels incomplete. Family drama is among the most character driven genres, and they just don't work well without strong and well-defined character arcs.

wliebold Imperfect, yes, but Winter Passing managed to involve me and charm me without overstaying its welcome. A young woman barely in control of her life returns home to her estranged father only to find that he is in even less control of his. A redefined family searching for common ground, the daughter unsure of a relationship long-strained and left to wither. Some challenges and more than a little redemption. Adam Rapp did not over reach on any of these subplots and the performances, particularly by Deschanel and Harris, are very substantial, although Will Farrell was an interesting choice for his character. Many will probably expect him to start doing something silly, as opposed to only mildly funny.This is one of the best "films you've never seen" that I've come across lately.Well worth a try.