A nice, emotional movie, a psychological drama about grief partially ruined by two completely useless characters, included for no reasonable reason at all! This is the story of David (Peter Gallagher) and his denial, his stubborn way of dealing with his wife Gillian (Michelle Pfeiffer)'s death by refusing to let her go. It's been two years and he still lives in the house by the beach where they lived when she died (while playing silly on the boat); he talks to her every night and celebrate her birthday as she liked to do. This is very deleterious for his daughter Rachel (Claire Danes). His sister-in-law Esther (Kathy Baker) is deeply worried, tries in every way to make him reason but he refuses to accept her passing away and sees nothing wrong in what he does, he can't see what effect this behavior has on Rachel.
So Esther plans to take Rachel away to live with her. Esther's husband Paul (Bruce Altman) is his best friend and of course he's worried, too, but doesn't stress it like she does. These are all the characters important, the only ones the movie needed. For some reason there were two more women: Kevin (Wendy Crewson), Paul's friend that Esther invited as a sort of blind date for David, that said very little and did even less, and Cindy (I think), a young woman that seems to live nearby and apparently is always there with David, who knows why. She's supposed to be a friend of Rachel, but doesn't seem to be. Honestly she doesn't fit at all, and her provocative way is only annoying, distracting and upsetting. I thought she hoped to seduce David, but she never tried to, fortunately. She had no use in the plot at all, her character damages the movie, in my opinion. I don't even think she serves the purpose of making Paul think his marriage over, because truth is it wasn't her flirting that did it, it was David and his endless love for Gillian. That was a good scene, Paul and Esther finally talking about their own marriage, openly. Do you ever think of someone else when we make love? No. Is it because we don't think there's anything to celebrate in our marriage that we never wanted to have children? and again Are you so crossed over David because you envy him the kind of feeling we never had? Then Paul says that every day he comes back home because after all he needs her to be there, to hold on to her, something like that, and I thought that was great. I liked that.
Things go down the night Rachel comes home drunk, after her date Joey (Freddie Prinze Jr) took her to a party at Danny's (Seth Green) , and booze starts talking, so she reveals to everybody that he actually talks to Gillian every night on the beach, than she has a terrible dream and confesses she can't take it anymore, that she wants to go living with aunt Esther. The moment to say goodbye comes and he finally realizes that if he has to let go of someone, it better be Gillian, not Rachel, and promises her to close the house and follow her. Good choice.
In Italy: A Gillian per il suo compleanno
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