Truly Dreadful Film

Such a frustrating disappointment

Blistering performances.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Star is an excellent Danielle Steel movie that shows the love between two people from the days of their idealistic youth and living through life's experiences by years of chasing their individual dreams. Crystal is the female character's name, played by Jennie Garth, whose dream was to be a singer and actress. She became involved with her manager who took advantage of her career and her life with his possessiveness and deceptiveness, until he was murdered, for which Crystal was accused. Crystal telephoned her love and he traveled to California, utilized his lawyer's talents to represent her, and cleared her. She sent him back East to continue his work, but with the knowledge of when he is finished with his work and done all he can do and is ready, she'll be waiting. Cystal's handsome love married the wrong woman, which he realized just prior to marrying after seeing Crystal singing in a night club he and his fiancé visited. His wife came from a family of power and repeatedly reminded him of this throughout their marriage focusing on opportunities her family could do for his career. His idealistic dream was to do good things for humanity, in conjunction with Senator Bobby Kennedy's run for the U.S. Presidency. His work took him to underdeveloped countries where he saw so many difficult situations for people of all ages. When he decided he had enough of his wife, her family and the whole scenario of the politics that go with it, he went home to Crystal and found he also had a son.He expressed it well toward the end of the movie when he returned to California where Crystal and her son were (back on their family ranch), "Whereever you both are is home."

I love watching these silly TV specials...it's a good way to do nothing when I'm in a lazy mood. However, I didn't see this one on TV, I saw it on DVD because my friend had it. I thought it had to be somewhat special. Oh boy !!! It sure is special.. I've watched it twice in 24 hours. And laughed myself silly both times. And totally ruined it for my friend. Like I told him, I've seen science-fiction movies that were more plausible than this ! Let alone the fact that they didn't bother trying to age the characters over the 15 years or so the story takes place over. The outfits don't change either. And the story... Pleaaase ! it's ridiculous. They have met a total of 3 minutes over a two-year period and she tells him that she wants to ride upstream with him, where the only sound you hear is the wind through the trees and where the sky is so blue it hurts. That line killed me ! (I'm not sure about the accuracy of my quote because I saw it in french, but that's the literal translation...) And the Cinderella-like story with the mother ! and the brother-in-law, and the brother !! And i just loved how she thanks Pearl for "everything she does for her" after 3 minutes of knowing her. There is so much to talk about and to make fun of ! I love this film. To me, it's a classic !!

SPOILERS THROUGH:I'm not a major Danielle Steel fan but have seen maybe three or four of her movies. This was not my favorite. I did not read the book before hand but it wasn't hard to figure out relatively quickly, where this one was going. The movie itself was not that long and that was the biggest problem. This didn't feel like a movie, more a series of events. There was absolutely no story development whatsoever.This story, taking place over so many years, really needed to be at least another hour maybe more. It just didn't work here. There was a "This happens, then this happens" quality. Nothing was developed, to the point where I really wondered what I was still doing watching this when there really was almost no story there.What WAS there was a vivid and throughly captivating performance from Jennie Garth as the main character Chrystal. She elevated the movie but it seemed so little effort was put into making this absorbing or giving it any sense of realism whatsoever, that it was quite disappointing and whatever one thinks of Danielle Steel, the other movies I've seen of her work did NOT have that element.Craig Berko seemed miscast but that may not be him, the character development was weak too. The character of Elizabeth, the wife, was developed pretty well though.I liked the scene where Chrytal goes into the bar when she firsts get to San Francisco looking for work but then it seems like overnight she is a major success which was rather difficult to believe. And I REALLY didn't buy that chance meeting between Garth and Berko. But the whole movie is pretty much like this.I have a feeling the book is much better but the movie itself is probably no more then a 5. Five is ultimately my vote and one thing I will say is having Garth in the lead role was a big positive. This actually would have been better as a miniseries or even a television series. Decent but skippable and 5 out of 10.

I gave this movie a seven because I normally don't watch drama movies let alone one based on a Danielle Steel novel. Second because Jenny Garth gave away a surprising good performance, excellent! Third because of her voice.The surpising supporting role by a Startrek acctress (which name I lost at the moment) helped some too.