Let's be realistic.

Disappointment for a huge fan!

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

I am watching this film at the moment on channel 61, At the point where Sally and John have the row about her leaving and not telling him, the actor changes and so does his clothes! Suddenly a much younger man is in place of John wearing a white cable knit sweater. This happens three times and then Sally becomes a younger version of herself, different hairstyle, makeup and clothes! I am puzzled as to how this film, that has received such great reviews and nominations for the acting, can be so badly edited. I have found this so distracting I had to break away and look the film up to see if anyone else has noticed this.Otherwise, it is a good film but I am being penickity perhaps.

I caught part of this movie by accident when it first came out. I had a four year old daughter and two year old twin sons, one of whom was not normal, a husband who didn't want to be bothered with raising them, and had given up my shop to stay home with the children. I had no idea what was wrong with my son, who was only very slightly developmentally delayed, but was strangely aloof. This movie presented some of my son's oddities, and I was terrified by much of what I saw. I modified some of my behavior with him beginning that day and talked to our doctor, family members and educators I knew about whether he could be autistic. All were sure that he was not, and I deeply regret that I didn't pursue a second or seventieth medical opinion. In kindergarten my son was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. I've been a single mother for 14 years now, and my son is generally viewed as quirky and shy rather than disabled: only time will tell how well he will do in the world.I can assure you, firsthand, that David's mother would indeed have been far too frazzled and depressed to carry on a relationship with a man even so patently wonderful as Sam Waterston's character (and I've had a crush on Waterston ever since he played Benedict in "Much Ado About Nothing"). I also have a problem with the all-or-nothing ending: David's mom surely should have found a way to see him daily, while allowing him the advantages that trained professionals could offer. But then, I think the same thing about myself.

Kirstie Alley won an Emmy for her performance in DAVID'S MOTHER, an uncompromising look at a blue-collar, boorish mother, who seems to be at a total loss at how to deal with her autistic son. Alley, cast against type, loses herself in this role of an uneducated, trailer-trash kind of mother who wants to love and help her son but is never really quite sure about what she should be doing for him. The always reliable Stockard Channing is also featured as her snobbish sister and Sam Waterston is charming as a man Alley gets involved with but this is Alley's movie and she forsakes any pretense of glamor to realistically portray an unsympathetic character in a difficult situation who somehow still manages to make us feel for her even though we know that a lot of what this woman does and feels is just wrong. Alley makes the most of a rather unpleasant role and gave us a memorable television experience, light years away from her role as Rebecca Howe on CHEERS.

Dealing with an autistic child, his demand for the family's attention, and their inability to focus their lives on anything other than this child. Realistic rather than sentimental, an unpleasant topic successfully presented with first-rate editing, acting and direction. Kirstie Alley, as the child's harried mom, comes up with a mesmerizing and utterly convincing portrayal.