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LOVE LIZA Send This Review to a Friend
This film is an invitation to grieve along with Philip Seymour Hoffman as a poor Middle America fellow named Wilson Joel, whose wife has committed suicide and left a note that he can't bring himself to read. In a morose state, he attempts to ease the pain by sniffing gasoline that he stocks up on at a local filling station. Kathy Bates plays his upset mother-in-law who intrudes and thinks he should at least read what her daughter had to say.
Hoffman is a fine actor, as we well know by now. In this sad film directed by Todd Louiso from a screenplay by Gordy Hoffman, the actor's brother, he has the camera on him most of the time. Perhaps that is a performer's delight, but even someone as good as Hoffman can't make watching endless depression fascinating without sufficient action taking place. Boredom becomes a more likely response than sympathy.
"Love Liza" goes on and on as we see Joel sink deeper and deeper into his funk, but the film doesn't tell us much more. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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