Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

'The Last Word'(2008), starring my mate Winnie and one Wes Bentley (of 'American Beauty' fame), I read the description on IMDb.com, it went a little something, actually, exactly like this:"A man (Bentley) who makes his living composing other people's suicide notes enters into a romance with the sister (Ryder) of a recent client." Hmmmm, I thought!I added it to my favourites so that I could go back and watch should the mood take me, anyway it did, I've just watched it, and now I'm writing this.Bentley plays Evan… I must say that this was the first thing i've enjoyed seeing Wes Bentley in since 'American Beauty'. Probably because his character in this movie is pretty much an older Ricky Fitz! Evan is a loner, poetically deep, interesting and intriguing… Had an abusive father… Yadda-yadda-yadda.Evan writes suicide notes (hence the title: 'The Last Word') for clients who've contacted him through his website. One of Evan's current clients is a guy called Abel, played by 'Everyone Love's Raymond's Ray Romano. I've never seen Ray Romano play any other character before and I really enjoyed his performance in this film. Abel's friendship with Evan grows during Evan's developing relationship with Ryder's character Charlotte.I never knew this movie existed before this weekend, and everything in it is subtle and yet achieves maximum impact.'The Last Word' is unpredictable, funny, honest and sad. Well it's not very sad per say, considering it's main theme is death! But for a piece which walks hand in hand with suicide it is actually quite light, yet not at all offensive or disrespectful. It follows Evan's story and it has a happy ending. It's the type of film that I don't plan to watch again, but probably will do, and probably more than once.In my opinion this movie is a wee gem. It's strangely beautiful, a bit like that carrier bag blowing in the wind! I recommend it.I even feel a need to make a shout out to the guy who wrote and directed this movie, his name is Geoffrey Haley. He has two writing credits to his name, one short film and this one being his only feature film. His greatest plethora of work takes place within the camera and electrical department; if you check out his film credentials on IMDb, he has over 80 for camera and electrical, steadicam operations being his apparent forte. You will no doubt recognise a lot of the films Haley has worked on, one of which was 'American Beauty'…Swings and roundabouts folks. Swings and roundabouts.

Every so often you come across a movie that no-one really saw or knows about, received little or no critical acclaim and it blows your socks off, its great to be surprised like that sometimes and this is one of those films for me.I should start by saying writer/director Jeffrey Haley should give up the day job of camera tech and do the film creating gig for real.Great script, great cast, fans of Winona Ryder's cleavage will have a field day here.Seriously though, this is very offbeat with a taboo subject but there are a few laugh out loud scenes here, mostly thanks to ray romano. I've always like wes bentley as an actor, he's perfect for dark roles and I liked the idiosyncracies like for example not having a car in LA.the only slight disappointment is the "hollywood" happy ending but the way it followed romano's dream to a tee was so well executed and OTT, it didn't detract from the movie for me.

This film takes one good character, one good performance and some vaguely amusing banter and buries it under an avalanche of moral obtuseness, male wish fulfillment and bizarrely incompetent writing. Writer/director Geoffrey Haley somehow came up with an outlandish premise that was rich in potential for dark comedy and satire, but demonstrates in the making of this movie that he didn't have the emotional or intellectual depth to do a damn thing with it.Evan (Wes Bentley) is a young writer in Los Angeles who makes a living writing for a particular sort of special occasion. He composes suicide notes for other people. People contact Evan through his website, he learns about their lives and then composes beautifully poetic final messages for them. Only about 30% of Evan's clients actually off themselves, but that's besides the point. This is a morally reprehensible thing to do. It's inviting people at the lowest point in their lives to come to you and then treating them with something worse than indifference. It's not just standing on the shore and watching someone else drown. It's standing on the shore, watching someone else drown and yelling out as they go under for the third time "Is there anything you want me to tell your mom after you're gone?"It's a horrible act and Evan is completely oblivious to how horrible it is, which makes him an even more horrible person…but that's okay. A person with such a stunted and disconnected nature could be a very interesting character. The problem is that the story is oblivious to the awfulness of Evan's actions. There's not a moment in this film where there's any sense given that there's anything wrong with what Evan is doing, except that other people might disapprove. Not only is that offensive, but such profound moral ignorance is boring.The stuff that happens to Evan starts when he attends the funeral of one of his clients to hear if the suicide note is read aloud, so Evan can critique his own work. His dead client's sister, Charlotte (Winona Ryder), notices him and here's where the male wish fulfillment comes in. Evan is dull as dishwater, lacking in any social graces and seems not just disinterested but annoyed at Charlotte's attention. Yet, this lovely, sexy, smart and vulnerable woman continues to throw herself at Evan until he deigns to have sex with her and become her boyfriend. It's every lonely nerd's ultimate fantasy. A hot chick falls in love with him and he doesn't even have to alter his pathetic personality.What's especially frustrating is that Charlotte is a very well written character and Winona Ryder does a fine acting job. There's a dramatic and emotional integrity to Charlotte. She's not just a pawn that gets moved around the plot to service Evan's story. She has reasons for what she does, she's aware of those reasons but she's not controlled by them. There are several points in the movie where Charlotte does the exact opposite of what you usually see from the "girlfriend role" and it's a little thrilling when it happens. For her part, Ryder is more than up to the demands of this role. She really captures the uneasy swirl of strength and weakness, confidence and desperation, self-awareness and self-deception a woman would have to have to be attracted to a guy like Evan. It also helps a lot that Ryder's physical attractiveness here as a grown woman equals all of the sublime cuteness of her youth.There's also a few laughs to be hand from the interaction of Evan and Abel (Ray Romano), a misanthropic client who insists on hanging out and talking with Evan like they were friends. Abel's not much more than a collection of funny lines of dialog and, again, there's no lesson or real point to their relationship because the story persists in denying the appalling essence of what Evan is doing for Abel.You can probably guess that Charlotte eventually learns that Evan wrote her brother's suicide note, imperiling their relationship, and that easy-to-predict point is where the film implodes from the pressure of fundamentally flawed writing. After Charlotte finds out what he did and is rightfully repulsed, Evan tries to redeem himself to her and the audience by explaining that her brother had advanced cancer, was in serious pain and only wanted to be at peace. That's supposed to at least partly ennoble Evan in the eyes of Charlotte and the viewer. It doesn't do that at all, for two very simple reasons.1. Evan spends their entire relationship lying to Charlotte. So, when he says Charlotte's brother had cancer, the first reaction from both Charlotte and the audience should be that it's just another lie. That very logical and reasonable response clearly never occurred to writer/director Geoffrey Haley. Not only does Charlotte never question it, but Haley never offers up any evidence to her or the audience that Evan is telling the truth. 2. If Evan is telling the truth, it only magnifies what a disgusting person he is. In the story, Charlotte is really torn up over her brother's death. Yet even though Evan is confronted with the human trauma enabled by his passive acquiescence to suicide, he still doesn't realize the horror that he's part of. Evan (and obviously Haley) thinks that because Charlotte's brother killed himself for a supposedly good reason, it somehow justifies what Evan does.I don't know what to make of this film. One aspect of it is very good, but the rest of it is so bad that I can't really believe that one filmmaker is responsible for it all. It's like trying to comprehend how George Lucas could create both Darth Vader and Jar Jar Binks. Tragically, The Last Word is mostly Jar Jar…and does anyone need to be told not to watch more Jar Jar?

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It had my complete attention from the opening and onward until the credits. Its a decent film to watch with a significant other if you cant talk her into Rambo 7.It leans more toward the drama side of things but definitely had some good laughs. It was casted well, as for I believe it was well acted. I cant really complain about much in this one.Romano lends himself to a great comedic supporting role to liven up the dark portrayal of the lead character; equating to a great balance in the movie.The ending was definitely fitting and made the movie end on a rather positive note; considering the movie takes you on a darker walk through out it was nice to see things summed up the way they were.