Meryl Streep gets to do her dowdy working class thing, Diane Keaton suffers cancer gracefully, Leonardo DiCaprio gets to do teen angst and Robert De Niro gets to mug away as an eccentric doctor in this all-star adaptation of Scott McPherson's play.
Performances are all eminently watchable, you do get a slight feeling that everyone is looking for that little golden statue, (even the young DiCaprio). but the truncated feel (just over 90 minutes of this tale of family responsibilities in the face of death) robs the film of anything more than perfunctory pleasures. Making it lose it's flow somewhat and end up with a fairly dreary second half. Still it is of higher class than any made for TV melodrama but falls short of being the next Steel Magnolias or Awakenings.