Loverboy (2004)
Average Rating: 4.1/10
Reviews Counted: 35
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 29
The transition from novel to film is awkwardly executed, and Sedgwick's character, despite the attempts to make her sympathetic, merely comes across as creepy and crazy.
Average Rating: 4.2/10
Critic Reviews: 14
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 11
The transition from novel to film is awkwardly executed, and Sedgwick's character, despite the attempts to make her sympathetic, merely comes across as creepy and crazy.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.7/5
User Ratings: 21,698
Movie Info
A mother once neglected as child but possessed of a heart overflowing with love grows increasingly despondent as her beloved child begins to claim his independence in director Kevin Bacon's adaptation of Victoria Redel's best-selling novel. If loving too much were a crime, well-meaning but overbearing mother Emily (Kyra Sedgwick) would be spending life behind bars with no hope of parole. When Emily was a child, her parents were deeply in love with one another but tragically indifferent to their
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Cast
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Kyra Sedgwick
Emily -
Kevin Bacon
Marty Stoll -
Blair Brown
Jeanette -
Matt Dillon
Mark -
Oliver Platt
Mr. Pomeroy -
Campbell Scott
Paul's Father -
Marisa Tomei
Sybil Stoll -
Dominic Scott Kay
Paul -
Sosie Bacon
Child Emily -
Jessica D. Stone
Anita Biddle -
John La Fayette
Allen Rawley -
Melissa Errico
Miss Silken -
Nancy Giles
Principal -
Sandra Bullock
Mrs. Harker -
-
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Loverboy Trailer & Photos
All Critics (35) | Top Critics (14) | Fresh (6) | Rotten (29) | DVD (2)
Long before the 86-minute film runs its course, you'll want to bolt from your seat and call Child Protective Services.
Top CriticEven though Loverboy is only 86 minutes long, as it wore on, I wore out.
There is a lot of skill on display here and a great performance but I can't recommend it either because this woman is so clearly and obviously abusive and insane.
Emily is a complicated woman, all right, but she's a difficult person to spend an entire movie with.
First-time director Kevin Bacon (Mr. Sedgwick) cleverly maintains a balance of discomfiting and familiar by jumping nimbly around Emily's life.
The real trouble is at its core, with an over-the-top performance from Sedgwick that borders on Baby Jane campiness.
Remarkably unsubtle and by-the-numbers, and thanks to some curious plotting, it's also a bit shrill and unpleasant.
If the situations are intentionally unreal, Sedgwick's performance could not be more real.
[Bacon's] overly stylized direction is distracting at first and then quickly becomes oppressive ...
A creepy misfire.
Except for the kid, what we have are a bunch of ageing ingénues grateful for the work and doing their best.
It all adds up to an unfortunate misfire: a film at odds with both its source material and itself.
Almost everything is annotated, or explained by incessant voice-over. This is its own form of suffocation, and the ideas and themes feel like they've been mothered too much.
It makes for a deeply uncomfortable moviegoing experience -- but unfortunately not one with enough behavioral insight to justify the pain.
Freud might have found something interesting here, but for most of us it's just a crazy mom movie, whatever contrivances the filmmakers use to make it all seem more profound.
The film runs out of steam by revealing too much, too soon.
Sedgwick does her best with the material, but the script is enamored with cloying dialogue and irritating voiceover, and Bacon's direction relies on shtick and gimmicks. We got no love for Loverboy.
Audience Reviews for Loverboy
Super Reviewer
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- Emily: There is no falling in love like falling in love with a child.
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- Emily: My equation was simple. Many men equals no father.
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- Emily: I was careful to choose only men whose genetic flowering showed something splendid.
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- Mrs. Harker: Hey, Emily. Don't let any boys give you trouble, okay? All you have to remember is that deep down inside, they're all afraid of girls.
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[font=Century Gothic][/font]
[font=Century Gothic]Directed by Kevin Bacon, "Loverboy" is an insipid movie about motherhood that takes the conservative stance that all independently single mothers are kooks.(Admittedly, Kyra Sedgwick does have a way with playing neurotics, as demonstrated in "The Closer," especially when pastry is involved.) The movie naively believes that love is needed in making a baby when all is required is one unhappy accident. And there is nothing wrong with home schooling a child, even if some parents do it for religious reasons. Anyway, I think all parents, single or married, are selfish to one degree or another.[/font]
[font=Century Gothic][/font]
[font=Century Gothic]And hey is that Sandra Bullock?[/font]
[font=Century Gothic][/font]
[font=Century Gothic]Note: Kyra Sedgwick, Campbell Scott and Matt Dillon were also in "Singles."[/font]