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Bessie's life takes an unexpected turn when eccentric doctor Robert De Niro gives her the bad news: she has leukemia. Only a bone marrow transplant from a matching donor can save her. Bessie contacts estranged sister Lee (Meryl Streep), and asks her to tested for a match, along with Lee's two sons, rebellious teenager Hank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and nerdy preadolescent Charlie (Hal Scardino).
Lee has been hardened by a troubled marriage that ended long ago, and by the behavior of Hank, who recently burned down her house and was sentenced to a teen jail. Lee, who lives in Ohio, comes with her two sons to visit Bessie in Florida and get tested. Lee is torn between doing the right thing (assuming Bessie's caretaker role) and doing the selfish thing (returning to Ohio to resume her career in cosmetology). Since it is a movie, Lee's decision is preordained.
How others will see it. This film has an impressive cast. Streep and Keaton are two of America's most acclaimed actresses, and De Niro has the most illustrious career of any living actor. DiCaprio had a growing rep from The Basketball Diaries and This Boy's Life, but stardom waited until his very next film, Titatic. Hume Cronyn's career included two Hitchcock films, Shadow of a Doubt and Lifeboat. Although Marvin's Room was his final feature, he would live until 2003, outlasting co-star Gwen Verdon, who passed in 2000. Even the Poindexter tween Hal Scardino brought a fine resume to the film, as his previous film was as the lead in The Indian in the Cupboard.
But it was Keaton who garnered a Best Actress nomination, presumably to the disappointment of Meryl Streep, accustomed to her annual Oscar nod. Keaton was blessed with a likeable character, while Streep is the odd woman out, frustrated, chain-smoking, and anguished.
Supporting roles include Cynthia Nixon from "Sex in the City", and Kelly Ripa of daytime talk show fame.
Surprisingly, user ratings at imdb.com indicate that viewers under 18 liked the film the most. This is probably due to the charismatic presence of pinup-worthy DiCaprio, who reacts negatively to authority, especially that of his mother. Surprisingly, adult viewers were ambivalent toward the film, despite its stellar cast. Perhaps the mixture of comedy and drama was too unsettling. De Niro's character, for example, has comic quirks, but his lines deliver bad news.
How I felt about it. The (would-be) Oscar moment for Keaton arrives when she explains her sunny attitude about her impending death from leukemia to Streep. She doesn't believe that she has wasted her adult life as a caretaker to two half-there relatives. Instead, she is grateful that she has had the opportunity to love them deeply for so long. The effect of this sentiment is to convince Streep into doing the same, at least until the state of Ohio gets around to extraditing DiCaprio for missing his return engagement at the pen.