The Greatest (2009)
Average Rating: 5.5/10
Reviews Counted: 56
Fresh: 29 | Rotten: 27
It's burdened by a predictable, overly melodramatic story, but The Greatest benefits from strong performances by its talented cast.
Average Rating: 5.4/10
Critic Reviews: 26
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 16
It's burdened by a predictable, overly melodramatic story, but The Greatest benefits from strong performances by its talented cast.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 5,695
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Movie Info
Tragedy opens the wounds a family has long struggled to ignore in this powerful emotional drama. Bennett Brewer (Aaron Johnson) was a bright, handsome, and talented young man who was suddenly killed in an auto accident late one night while driving home with Rose (Carey Mulligan), a girl who had been a close friend for years but had only recently become romantically involved with him. Bennett's death devastates his family: his mother, Grace (Susan Sarandon), is overcome with grief and can't stop
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Cast
-
Pierce Brosnan
Allen Brewer -
Susan Sarandon
Grace Brewer -
Carey Mulligan
Rose -
Johnny Simmons
Ryan Brewer -
Aaron Johnson
Bennett Brewer -
Zöe Kravitz
Ashley -
Jennifer Ehle
Joan -
Amy Morton
Lydia -
Michael Shannon
Jordan Walker -
Kevin Hagan
Priest -
Deirdre O'Connell
Joyce -
Miles Robbins
Sean -
Cara Seymour
Janis -
Ramsey Faragallah
Dr. Shamban -
Colby Minifie
Latent -
Maryann Urbano
Cheryl -
Portia
Toni -
Dante E. Clark
Dante
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The Greatest Trailer & Photos
All Critics (56) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (29) | Rotten (27)
The real surprise is Brosnan's silent, agonized performance; his post-007 career has been one long campaign to prove he's got the goods.
Top CriticOverwrought in all the wrong ways, The Greatest doesn't do its normally excellent cast any favors.
A meditation on loss by a writer-director whose honesty, sensitivity and intelligence more than mitigate the film's histrionic qualities.
Sarandon and Brosnan are very good, indeed, Brosnan surprisingly so. In fact, Brosnan has never been so opened up, so emotional and yet so precise in his work. It's a lovely performance in a film that only sometimes deserves him.
Though it sometimes feels more like a collection of scenes than a complete story, some moments are so raw and insightful that they feel like a punch to the heart.
What makes The Greatest work so well is that Feste clearly remembers what it's like to be 18 and to believe your one chance at joy has passed you by.
Although Feste delivers a well-acted, competently directed film with The Greatest, it ultimately lacks the originality that could lift it out of the fog.
...a passable debut from a relatively promising director...
Even if you want more from a film than a depiction of reality, you'll still appreciate the stars' performances. But you'll find yourself thinking it could have been so much better if rendering grief effectively didn't seem like the only goal.
First-time writer-director Shana Feste has made a wise, insightful movie about family, grief, and how awful and how wonderful it is to discover that life goes on after someone you love dies.
The title is incorrect.
Yet another film that tries to pass off a whole lot of screaming and crying as great acting. This fails especially in Brosnan's big crying scene, in which he audibly squeaks
Two gifted young women whose best work will be in other films are the reason to see this one.
Perhaps the best compliment to give it is that it never comes off as a weepy Lifetime movie. The acting and writing are too good to let that happen.
It could more appropriately be known as just Good with Brief Moments of Absolute Brilliance.
Redeemed by its performances, its sporadic, carefully observed moments of truth, and the fact that Feste knows from good drama. The Greatest may be cheesy, but it ain't amateur hour.
A well-performed tearjerker of the kind that mostly transcends its melodramatic set-up to become something genuinely moving.
The Greatest isn't even the best recent movie that stars Susan Sarandon as a woman trying to deal with the death of a child while forced into an awkward relationship with the main squeeze of the dead kid.
I wish I could say there was a moment in The Greatest that surprised me, but there wasn't.
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