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Cast

Meryl Streep
as Lee

Diane Keaton
as Bessie

Leonardo DiCaprio
as Hank

Robert De Niro
as Dr. Wally

Hume Cronyn
as Marvin

Gwen Verdon
as Ruth

Hal Scardino
as Charlie

Dan Hedaya
as Bob

Margo Martindale
as Dr. Charlotte

Kelly Ripa
as Amber/Coral

Cynthia Nixon
as Retirement Home Director

John Callahan
as Lance

Chad Dowdell
as Delivery Guy (uncredited)

Olga Merediz
as Beauty Shop Lady

Joe Lisi
as Bruno

Steve DuMouchel
as Gas Station Guy

Bitty Schram
as Janine

Victor Garber
as Minister

Lizbeth MacKay
as Novice

Helen Stenborg
as Nun on Phone

Sally Parrish
as Nun No. 3

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News & Interviews for Marvin's Room

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.
  

  John B 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.
  Cameron J 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.
  Aj V 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."
  Manu G Super Reviewer

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