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Home Room (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 21
Fresh: 11
Rotten:10
Average Rating: 5.5/10
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for strong language and some violent images
Runtime: 2 hrs 12 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Sep 5, 2003 Limited
Synopsis: In the aftermath of a small town high school shooting, nine are killed and one, popular Deanna (Erika Christensen), is wounded. As students and the victims' relatives try to make sense of the... In the aftermath of a small town high school shooting, nine are killed and one, popular Deanna (Erika Christensen), is wounded. As students and the victims' relatives try to make sense of the situation, Deanna recuperates in the hospital. A detective (Victor Garber) is given the difficult task of laying the blame on someone, and he focuses his attention on Alicia (Busy Philipps), an intense, outsider-type student who was the only witness to the entire incident. A clearly troubled and unpopular girl, Alicia is forced by the school principal to visit Deanna daily in the hospital. While Deanna, though troubled by the ordeal, is friendly and sociable, Alicia is angry and verbally abusive. Over the course of days, however, the girls form a bond that arises out of coping with great tragedy. Small but ambitious, HOME ROOM deals with the sensitive subject of teenage gun violence sensitively and intelligently. With the intimate style of a stage play, Paul F. Ryan's screenplay attempts to examine the senseless aftermath of a school shooting, from every angle. Busy Philips's carries the film with her magnetic performance of Alicia, the troubled goth girl who hides her secrets with a tough exterior. [More]
Starring: Busy Philipps, Erika Christensen, Victor Garber, Ken Jenkins
Starring: Busy Philipps, Erika Christensen, Victor Garber, Ken Jenkins, Holland Taylor, James Pickens, Raphael Sbarge
Director: Paul F. Ryan
Director: Paul F. Ryan
Screenwriter: Paul F. Ryan
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Reviews for Home Room
Though the film is overlong (it runs over two hours), it's never boring - mainly due to a pair of fantastic lead performances.
The relationship that Deanna and Alicia forge is fascinating...as it allows for a genuine search for truth instead of something that is forced or contrived.
Thanks to Philipps's explosive need and Christensen's struggling vulnerability, we see the human costs inherent in tragedy once the TV trucks have left and only the haunting remains.
Weighted by good intentions, Ryan turns a potentially riveting story of two lost souls shaken by trauma into a sappy teen drama.
Alicia and Deanna's journey toward friendship, or at least a truer understanding, is moving.
In the midst of this didactic, self-conscious movie about a high school shooting comes an extraordinary and intense performance by a young actress named Busy Philipps, which elevates the whole picture.
Dismal but not disheartening, this tale of picking up the pieces is as cutting as those pieces can be and as satisfying as cleaning up the mess.
Overall, it plays like the world's longest -- over two hours -- after-school special.
Its noble intentions are undermined by syrupy, movie-of- the-week direction.
A powerful movie that loses some of its momentum by touching on too many stories. It's not always easy to watch, but it's thought provoking.
Ryan's tough-minded little movie avoids any sort of sentimentality; nothing warm and fuzzy here, just honest emotions from two excellent young actresses.
At 133 minutes, Home Room is sluggishly paced and refuses to lighten up for even a second.
With an unconscionably long running time of 2 hours and 11 minutes for what is essentially a two-hander between Philipps and Christensen, Home Room feels like detention -- without the possibility of recess.
Overwrought, way too long, and rife with emotional implausibilities, the film comes very close to being an affront to the memory of the victims of these real-life catastrophes, because very little in it comes very close to being real.
At times, Home Room threatens to become a Driving Miss Daisy for the Clueless set.
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