Robert Harling Movies
Robert Harling often bases his plays and screenplays on his past personal experiences. He originally studied to become a lawyer, but shortly before graduating from the Tulane University School of Law, he decided that acting was the better profession and never took his Bar exam. He lived in New York for several years, acting and working as a voiceover artist before penning the script for what remains his most famous work, Steel Magnolias, which he adapted, in 1989, into a popular film starring Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, and Sally Field. The story behind Harling's second screenwriting effort, Soapdish (1991), came from his personal experience as an actor. He made his directorial debut with his adaptation of novelist Larry McMurty's The Evening Star (1997), which in turn was a sequel to the popular melodrama Terms of Endearment (1983). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 2010
Betty Thomas turns her comic eye toward Dallas, the big-screen adaptation of the glitzy TV drama that follows oil tycoon J.R. Ewing and his ostentatious family. The film version has endured many bumps in its production history, with Bend It Like Beckham's Gurinder Chadha most recently attached to direct before Thomas was brought in with her more comedic take, thus adding to the ranks of talent that once circled the project, including Jennifer Lopez, Luke Wilson, Shirley MacLaine, and most notably, John Travolta. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
Though equally respected in their field, divorce lawyers Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) and Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan) are opposites inside and out of the courtroom. Audrey is meticulous and by the book, while Daniel relies on personality and luck to get by. Despite the difference in methods, neither lawyer has lost a case, and neither plan on ending their streak after being respectively hired by Serena (Parker Posey) and Thorne (Michael Sheen), a celebrity power couple gone wrong. The divorce settlement hinges on a particularly spectacular Irish castle, which both parties would like to keep for themselves. Audrey and Daniel hurry to Ireland with depositions in their eyes, but a growing mutual attraction manages to squirm out from beneath, and, after being immersed in a romantic Irish festival, the rival lawyers wake up married. Reeling, potentially in love (to Audrey in particular's dismay), and faced with the type of media explosion capable of leading to the end of their careers, the mismatched lawyers contemplate how to go about their clients' divorce hearings as man and wife. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierce Brosnan, Julianne Moore, (more)
This romantic comedy from the John Hughes school of domestic farce stars Greg Kinnear and Lauren Holly as Danny Robertson, an elevator installer, and his wife Jennifer, the owner of an aroma therapy products store. They have a great marriage until Jennifer, who desperately wants a child, secretly stops taking her birth control pills. When she fails to become pregnant, she covertly delivers a sample of Danny's sperm to a fertility clinic, which discovers a biological problem. Danny is furious and embarrassed, but he reluctantly joins the effort to conceive. The crusade to have a baby becomes a humiliating spectacle for both Robertsons, and, as their marriage begins to fracture from the stress, Danny contemplates the charms of a sexy architect (Jill Hennessy) while Jennifer eyes a charming business executive (Christopher McDonald). A Smile Like Yours was the directorial debut of Keith Samples, producer of Big Night (1996) and Two Days in the Valley (1996). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Greg Kinnear, Lauren Holly, (more)
Three women plot revenge on their two-timing husbands in this comedy. Brenda (Bette Midler), Elise (Goldie Hawn), and Annie (Diane Keaton) were close friends in college, but 27 years after graduation they've lost touch with each other, and it's not until a mutual friend of the three commits suicide that they meet at the funeral for the first time in years. It seems that their friend grew despondent after her husband left her for a younger woman, and all three find themselves in similar situations. Elise is an actress who finds herself out of work now that she's seen the shady side of 40, and her husband and producer Bill (Victor Garber) is demanding a divorce (and half of her fortune). Brenda helped her husband Morton (Dan Hedaya) open a profitable chain of discount electronics stores, but now that his commercials have made him a minor celebrity, he's taken up with a much younger (and thinner) woman. Annie has allowed her husband Aaron (Stephen Collins) to use her as a doormat throughout their marriage, and she's at a loss now that he's leaving her. After comparing notes, Brenda, Elise, and Annie decide that it's time to do something about their problems, and they hatch an elaborate blackmail scheme that will win them control of their ex-husband's businesses and allow them to do something positive with the money they helped earn. Heather Locklear and Ivana Trump both make cameo appearances. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, (more)
Shirley MacLaine reprises her award-winning performance as Aurora Greenway in this sequel to Terms of Endearment. Fifteen years after the death of her daughter Emma, Aurora is still keeping an eye on her three grandchildren and not having very good luck with it. Tommy (George Newbern) is currently doing time on drug charges; Teddy (MacKenzie Astin) has a job with no future and an ill-mannered child whose mother, Jane (China Kantner), doesn't believe in traditional discipline; and Melanie (Juliette Lewis) is bound and determined to put Aurora through as much grief as Emma did. Aurora has a number of other adversarial relationships to contend with; she often spars with Patsy (Miranda Richardson), a friend of Emma's dead mother, and her housekeeper Rosie (Marion Ross), who is having a tentative late-term romance with the next-door neighbor, Arthur (Ben Johnson). Aurora's own love life is not doing so well. Her affair with The General (Donald Moffat) is on its last legs, she ends up sleeping with her analyst Jerry (Bill Paxton), and she confesses to her former flame Garrett (Jack Nicholson) that she has yet to meet the love of her life. Like Terms of Endearment, The Evening Star was based on a novel by Texas author Larry McMurtry; this was the final film for actor Ben Johnson, who died before it was released and who received an Academy Award and made a major comeback for his work in another film based on a McMurtry novel, The Last Picture Show. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Bill Paxton, (more)
A sleeper hit that received a lukewarm reception from critics but was a success with audiences, Sister Act (1992) was star Whoopi Golberg's first bona fide smash after her Oscar victory for Ghost (1990). Goldberg stars as Deloris Van Cartier, a Reno lounge singer who accidentally witnesses a brutal murder carried out by her gangster boyfriend Vince (Harvey Keitel). Under the protection of a detective (Bill Nunn) who's trying to bring down Vince's criminal operation, Deloris is placed in protective custody at a San Francisco convent. Masquerading as a nun renamed Sister Mary Clarence, Deloris shakes up the established order of the sisters' lives, particularly enlivening their choral efforts. Although running constantly afoul of the Mother Superior (Maggie Smith), the new, jazzed-up musical act becomes a huge hit in the community, even drawing the attention of the Pope, but also alerting Vince to Deloris' whereabouts. Although credited to the pseudonymous Joseph Howard, Sister Act was actually written by Paul Rudnick and Carrie Fisher. The film was followed by a sequel, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Whoopi Goldberg, Maggie Smith, (more)
In the comedic farce Soapdish, the behind-the-scenes lives of several soap opera actors are just as melodramatic as those of their television counterparts. Sally Field stars as Celeste Talbert, the star of a declining TV show. To make matters worse, Talbert's career is thrown into turmoil when her rival, Montana Moorehead (Cathy Moriarty), tries to persuade producer David Barnes (Robert Downey Jr.) to write Talbert off the show. Smitten by Moorehead, Barnes comes up with a scheme to get Talbert off the show by hiring her niece Lori (Elisabeth Shue) and then Jeffrey (Kevin Kline), an old flame and cast member who was written out of the show 20 years prior. Soon, mayhem rules on the set as the cast and crew tangle, culminating in a special episode, broadcast live. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sally Field, Kevin Kline, (more)
The title refers to those seemingly frail Southern belles who survive any and all deprivations through whims of iron. Robert Harling's original stage play was set exclusively in a Louisiana beauty parlor where an all-female cast of characters laughed, cried and compared menfolk. The film expands the playing field by including scenes at picnics, hospitals and the like, and by visually depicting the males who never appeared in the stage version. Dolly Parton plays the goodnatured beauty-shop owner, while Shirley MacLaine is the cantankerous town eccentric, decked out in grungy overalls and speaking fluent Trash. Well-to-do Sally Field bravely endures several assaults to her sensibilities, not the least of which is the illness (and subsequent death) of daughter Julia Roberts. The performances are first-rate, with the possible exception of Daryl Hannah's overemphatic portrayal of a gawky hairdresser. The film stumbles a bit in its depiction of the male characters as fools and deadheads, and in the final overlong hospital scenes involving the comatose Roberts, which play like a road company version of Terms of Endearment. Otherwise, Steel Magnolias is a prime example of ensemble filmmaking, lovingly coordinated by director Herbert Ross. (Sidebar: Herbert Ross was reportedly rather rough on Julia Roberts, deriding her lack of experience. The rest of the female cast rallied around Roberts and told the director to lay off or pay the price). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sally Field, Dolly Parton, (more)
