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      Marvin's Room

      1996, Drama, 1h 38m

      50 Reviews 10,000+ Ratings

      What to know

      Critics Consensus

      Marvin's Room rises above the pack of dysfunctional family dramas thanks to an impeccable cast that includes Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Read critic reviews

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      Movie Info

      Bessie (Diane Keaton) and Lee (Meryl Streep) are sisters who have remained apart for nearly 20 years due to radically different personalities and life paths. Bessie remained in Florida to care for their ill, bed-ridden father (Hume Cronyn), and Lee moved to Ohio to marry and have a family. But Bessie's doctor (Robert De Niro) has informed her she has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. Bessie's prognosis and Lee's troubled son (Leonardo DiCaprio) create an unexpected family reunion.

      • Rating: PG-13

      • Genre: Drama

      • Original Language: English

      • Director: Jerry Zaks

      • Producer: Robert De Niro, Scott Rudin, Jane Rosenthal

      • Writer: Scott McPherson

      • Release Date (Theaters):  original

      • Release Date (Streaming):

      • Box Office (Gross USA): $12.8M

      • Runtime:

      • Distributor: Miramax Films

      • Production Co: Scott Rudin Productions, Tribeca Productions

      • Sound Mix: Surround

      Cast & Crew

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      Critic Reviews for Marvin's Room

      Audience Reviews for Marvin's Room

      • Jan 17, 2012

        Favourite of the community theatre set, the film is well cast but fails in the sappiness metre. I think that Steep, Keaton and DiCaprio could do this in their sleep.

        Super Reviewer
      • Apr 23, 2011

        "Marvin's Room" is slow and unengaging, but has a good story and solid acting, notably from DiCaprio (I know, who would have guessed?) to make it a decent watch.

        Super Reviewer
      • Sep 06, 2010

        This is another movie I had to watch for a class, and now I barely remember it. All I remember is everyone loving Leo, and thinking to myself how boring the movie was.

        Super Reviewer
      • Feb 03, 2010

        Sometimes the people you know the least...are the ones you need the most! Good movie! 'Marvin's Room' doesn't try to give simple answers; after all, all families have dysfunctions, but instead is like a canvas that reveals itself for the many layers of dynamics between its players and does so in an uplifting manner, much like the beautiful moment when Bessie and Lee witness Marvin's delight in seeing a display of light coming from a mirror Bessie is holding. It's a quiet moment, one of intense love, that shows the power of family despite the odds, and what better way to end the film with Gwen Verdon's last line? Hope is all around. Great acting performances, go see it! Estranged since their father's first stroke some 17 years earlier, Lee and Bessie lead separate lives in separate states. Lee's son, Hank, finds himself committed to a mental institution after setting fire to his mother's house. His younger brother, Charlie, seems unfazed by his brother's eccentricities or his mother's seeming disinterest. When Lee comes to the asylum to spring Hank for a week in Florida so that he can be tested as a possible bone marrow donor for Bessie, Hank is incredulous. "I didn't even know you had a sister," he says. "Remember, every Christmas, when I used to say 'Well, looks like Aunt Bessie didn't send us a card again this year?'" "Oh yeah," Hank says. Meanwhile, Marvin, the two women's bedridden father, has "been dying for the past twenty years." "He's doing it real slow so I don't miss anything," Bessie tells Dr. Wally. In Bessie's regular doctor's absence, it has fallen to Dr. Wally to inform Bessie that she has leukemia and will die without a bone marrow transplant. This precipitates the two sisters uneasy reunion. In Marvin's room, Bessie cares for her father's every need. In Lee's eyes, the sacrifice Bessie has made is too great and realizing the old man's welfare will fall to her if Bessie dies, Lee's first instinct is to look for a nursing home. "In a few month's, I'll have my cosmotology degree," she says. "My life is just coming together; I'm not going to give it all up, now!" As first Lee is tested and then the boys for the compatibility of their marrow with Bessie's, the women take stock of their lives and rediscover the meaning of "family."

        Super Reviewer

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