Sadly Over-hyped

ridiculous rating

A Disappointing Continuation

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Even way back in 1998, the question would have been a valid one: does the world really need yet another of the "mother in law hates the new daughter in law for taking her son away from her so she sets out to destroy her" movies? Really - hasn't this been done to death? Well, in 1998 somebody decided that, indeed, another one was needed - and the end result was this rather unoriginal story that doesn't do anything that other movies of this type haven't already done.Frankly, the only thing that saved this was the performance of Jessica Lange as Martha Baring, the obsessively jealous and controlling mother in law. Lange, I thought, did a good job with her character. At first, Martha seems almost normal and welcoming of her new daughter in law Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow). But she gradually becomes more and more menacing and by the end borders on the insane, and that was all brilliantly pulled off by Lange, who made an otherwise bland movie worth watching.Unfortunately, one superb performance can't save an otherwise weak movie. (4/10)

In theory, "Hush" sounds like an ideal movie, but I'm afraid the results leave a lot to be desired. How in the world did these actors, especially Gwyneth Paltrow, get duped into participating in this project? Everyone is phoning in their performances here. This is a movie you might as well be listening to on the radio. The "story", not that there is much of one, is this: A New York couple, Jackson and Helen, are visiting his mother, Martha, for the holidays. She smokes, drinks, and tries to tear this couple apart (from what I can recall, anyway). The closest any of these characters get to being menacing, is when Helen (Jessica Lange's character) changes the temperature in the hot tub her mother is bathing in at the spa (or wherever the tub is). I didn't buy the story, I wasn't engaged, and I didn't care about the characters (or what would eventually happen to them). The things that happen, happen simply because the screenplay requires it to.** out of ****

Jackson Baring takes his girlfriend Helen to his family's horse farm Kilronin. Jackson's mother Martha has been running the place but would like her son to take over. Jackson and Helen are living together in New York City and are reluctant to leave that life. But Helen somehow gets pregnant, even though she was using birth control, and the two get married and eventually do take over the farm.Jackson blames himself for his father's death when he was 7. Martha knows the truth but won't tell him, and she seems to have an unnatural relationship with her son. It's almost as if she sees his father and wants to be with him in that way. And she sees the baby as a means of continuing the legacy, but not a child to be loved, at least not in the way most people would. Her treatment of Helen is strange, as if Helen is only useful until the baby is born, and then she will be in the way.The ending is exciting and sort of creepy at the same time.Jessica Lange does a fine job here as Jackson's overly controlling and demented mother. However, Nina Foch gives the standout performance as Jackson's grandmother, who is kept in a fancy nursing home because only she knows the truth about how her son died.I think all the leading actors did a good job here. I usually can't stand Debi Mazar, who was a co-worker to Helen and possibly her boss, but I would like to have seen more of her here. But if Helen had to move out of New York, I guess keeping her job was out of the question.I suppose my favorite scene was the one where Helen gets out of bed naked and meets her mother-in-law for the first time. That one was edited for TV in such a way it seemed kind of jerky and I didn't get to see much, but a lot depends on how one sees this movie.It's not typical of what I like in a movie, but still entertaining.

This movie starring Jessica Lange and Gwyneth Paltrow has great talent, but the production company obviously spent all its money on the stars' salaries. A film about Kentucky Thoroughbred racing should be filmed in Kentucky, not at a show horse farm in Virginia. The Kentucky Blue Grass region is uniquely identifiable, as is Virginia horse country -- and the two are not interchangeable, even in fiction. It is like making a film about New York City in Los Angeles. Did they think no one would notice? And there are plenty of Thoroughbreds in Virginia, so why did the filmmaker try to pass off big, fat show horses as racehorses? The scene at the horse sale and all its errors are even too ridiculous to mention.The technical adviser on this film was either asleep or inept, because a scene does not pass without a glowing inaccuracy. Especially noticeable to anyone interested in horses who watches this movie (and I can't imagine anyone else would) are the dangerous ways in which the horses are handled, usually by people who are recognizable as amateurs at handling a horse. The most glaring fax pas surrounds the drug oxytocin that Jessica Lange's character removes from the cabinet: the label clearly states "erythromycin tablets." Again, did the filmmaker think no one would notice? Literary license is one thing, but this movie goes way, way beyond that and into the depths of the toilet.