# Hanging Up (2000)

### reviewed by
Rose 'Bams' Cooper

    '3 Black Chicks Review...'

Hanging Up (2000) Rated PG-13; running time 92 minutes Genre: Comedy/Drama IMDB site: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0162983 Official site: http://www.spe.sony.com/movies/hangingup/index.html Written by: Nora Ephron (based on the story by Delia Ephron) Directed by: Diane Keaton Starring: Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton, Lisa Kudrow, Walter Matthau, Adam Arkin, Cloris Leachman, Jesse James

Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000 Review URL: http://www.3blackchicks.com/bamshangingup.html

As the middle of seven sisters, I've been anticipating seeing "Hanging Up" for weeks now. Surely, I thought, they'd be addressing Issues like the ones I've had with my younger and older siblings for thirtysomething years now. Surely, I thought, the Female Factor would be in full effect. Surely, I thought, I'd leave the theater with a better Understanding of the mystique that is sisterhood--or at least pleased at having been able to identify with the chicks on screen ("yeah girl, my sister tried to play that sh...tuff too!")

    Boy, was I wrong.

The Story (WARNING: some spoilers contained below): In what probably sounded better On Paper than what was actually realized, Eve (Meg Ryan), Georgia (Diane Keaton) and Maddy (Lisa Kudrow) are sisters who really strain to have Issues with each other, with their dying father (Walter Matthau), with their estranged mother (Cloris Leachman), and with the phones that seem to rule their lives.

The Upshot Take note: this will be the shortest review I've written to date--because there's really not much to tell. This movie can be summed up in a single phrase: the Ephron sisters (Nora and Delia, co-writers of this dud) need to keep their boring Issues to themselves.

I tried, lord knows I did, to find something to write about. The storyline just bored me to tears, being linear and obvious as it was; the acting was tedious; the dog was as unnecessary as the unfortunate inclusion of Adam Arkin as Eve's husband Joe and Jesse James as their son Jesse (not that they did anything wrong, per se, only that they were just so much dead wood in a forest full of logs); Diane Keaton's directing debut was uninspiring; and the whole phone gimmick was too through after the first or second time it was crammed down the viewers' throats. Except for Leachman's somewhat interesting role as the mother who didn't want to be a mother, nothing else about this movie justified it taking up 92 minutes of my life.

I won't take up more minutes of your life trying to make more out of this by-the-numbers movie than needed. You won't laugh, you won't cry, you won't feel moved to tell your sisters you love them. You'll only wonder why Mom and Dad Ephron didn't send their girls to writer's camp.

Bammer's Bottom Line: If you've seen the trailers/commercials for this flick, you've seen the movie. No, not just the best parts, I mean that you've seen the *movie*; the other 90 or so minutes are just filler. Boring, trite filler at that. Guess I'll have to wait for The Black "Hanging Up" to see my sisters and I on the big screen, after all.

    "Hanging Up" (rating: yellowlight):
    Never even got a dial tone.

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