# Hanging Up (2000)

### reviewed by
Mac VerStandig

    Hanging Up
    1 Star (Out of 4)
    Reviewed by Mac VerStandig
    critic@moviereviews.org
    http://www.moviereviews.org
    February 18, 2000
    USA Release Date - February 18, 2000

---A copy of this review can be found at http://www.moviereviews.org/hanging_up.htm ---

Georgia, Diane Keaton's character in the new film Hanging Up, says it best: "it's possible our father will never die." Audiences can sympathize as they groan through this 92-minute story of three sisters and their elderly, senile father. It shouldn't come as a surprise that, just before credits role, Lou (Walter Matthau) will pass away- it is what is expected. Unfortunately, what passes the time is no more entertaining than those telephone salesmen that always ring during dinner.

Eve (Meg Ryan), Geogia and Maddy (Lisa Kudrow) are three sisters separated by profession but connected by AT&T. Georgia is the wealthy founder of a self-titled magazine, Maddy is a quasi-celebrity soap actress and Eve is a frazzled house-wife/mother trying to succeed in the business world via "No Surprises", her party planning company.

As Lou's health worsens with more and more incoherent references to "John Wayne's pecker" and death becomes imminent, Eve finds herself as the sole caretaker since only she is willing to set aside the time for her father. As phones ring all night, she exclaims "he's dead," always to be proven wrong. Where are the other two offspring of this divorced father? On the set and in the conference room.

Despite being directed by Keaton, Hanging Up is Meg Ryan's movie. Kudrow and Keaton, save their star-status, would only be considered extras during the first 80 minutes of the film. They are prominent at the end, but the production remains a vehicle for Meg Ryan as an actress and Walter Matthau as a supporting actor (who does very well in a role much akin to that of Jason Robards in Magnolia). Additionally, I'm not sure that Kudrow and Keaton's performances qualify as acting- they seem a tad too comfy playing pampered and strictly selfish blonde women.

Traditionally, when making films where the ending will be marked by an obvious death, a secondary plot is added to keep the audience engaged. In the 1993 masterpiece Philadelphia, a fascinating and oftentimes gripping legal battle dominates the screen. Delia Ephron, whose freshman novel is the premise for the movie, obviously is not a Jonathan Demme or Tom Hanks fan as the death of Lou is the only saga here.

This script would probably never have been produced except for the fact that Delia's sister is Nora Ephron. Call her the Tori Spelling of writing, because this once respected journalist/non-fiction author will achieve nothing in the world of Hollywood's fictional films without her sibling's help.

Many people can sympathize with this tale of cell phones, car phones, portable phones, stationary phones and the family at the other end of them. That may well be the singular gleaming point of the film. Unfortunately though, at the end, the movie proves to be no more enjoyable than the resultant enormous phone bill.

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