 "Gere & Foster in a film for romantics only" | 2008-07-31 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2OFSDJB3MVQ16 |
| Actor/producer Richard Gere seems to have a habit of translating successful French films into vehicles for himself. Some are successful, some are not (Intersection)--this film is probably one of his best. Based on the film, "The Return of Martin Guerre", which was also made into a Broadway musical, the story is about an Civil war vet who returns home after many years and resurrects his romance with his wife (Foster) who suspects he may not be who he really is, since before the war their relationship was at a stalemate. Also she was being courted by a long time suitor (Bill Pullman) who is warily suspicious of him being who he is. In the interim though he attempts to re-build the broken town by persuading the townspeople to plant tobacco rather than cotton. Of course, there is a plot reversal in the story which challenges his identity and integrity to the limit. I won't go too much into detail on this point but Gere & Foster deliver graceful performances as the ill-fated couple and Bill Pullman etches more than a portrayal of a villain but a man who drawn to extremes in his quest for the love of Laurel (Foster). This film was approriately released during Valentine's Day and if you're a romantic at heart--you will be entralled by this film. If you're cynic at heart, then stay away. This film is a worthy translation of the celebrated French film. |
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 "It will leave you wondering who Sommersby is indeed!!" | 2008-05-28 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1RLCTTMK0OAOF |
Sommersby
Set in the aftermath of the Civil War, Jack Sommersby (Richard Gere) returns, after about six years, to the town of Vine Hill, Tennessee, to find his plantation and house devastated by the ravages of war. Additionally, he encounters his beautiful wife Lauren Sommersby (Jodie Foster), who is actually engaged to another fellow. Sommersby returns as a completely different, loving, working, and caring person, and makes everyone believe he is back. In fact, his romantic relationship with Lauren achieves its most sublime point. He convinces the town to grow tobacco to get out of the wreckage and devastation and is quite successful at that. He even sells pieces of land to dark people to work with.
Everything seems fine until the moment that he is arrested and sent to trail for supposedly killing a man. At this precise moment, his identity is utterly challenged. He is hypothetically not Jack Sommersby, but some other murderer called Townsend. Judie Foster does a superb job at trying to convince the Judge and the Jury that he is not in fact her husband giving away even intimate details. However, Jack himself does the contrary since for him his love for his children and wife and the honor involved are more important than life itself.
I am not about to convey the end of the story. I will only say that this is a great DVD to watch and will leave you wondering who is Jack Sommersby indeed.
By the way, the performances of Richard Gere and Judie Foster are both outstanding, and this is a DVD that you will never forget until the end of your life!
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| "Is You Is Or Is You Not My Baby?" | 2008-03-23 |
| - Reviewed By prisrob |
"Sommersby" is both about the cyclical nature of the universe, where matter can be neither created nor destroyed, only changed in state, and a demonstration of that law." Vincent Canby
I loved this film, hated the ending. A southern man comes home from the Civil War and re-enters his life as Jack Sommersby. His wife, thinking he was indeed dead after 6 six years has promised herself to another. Nothing is as it was, and it never will be again. The old Southern plantation has been looted, and there is not much left but the body and souls who inhabit the place. It appears that Jack Sommersby was not the kind of man one really liked unless you were into brutality, drunkenness and slavery. But this new Jack Sommersby is a changed man, "Got hit in my head" he says. The neighbors and the man who was to marry his wife think something is not quite right here. But Jack Sommersby offers his family and his neighbors something they have not seen nor heard in a long time, hope. Hope of making a living and living off the land. Jack Sommersby has wormed his way into their hearts, and they love them. He has also offered his black slaves their own land, and this does not go over well with some. Visions of the KKK. But this new Jack Sommersby is not what he seems, and a trial and the courtroom soon reveal what has been and what is to come.
Jodie Foster, as Laurel Sommersby, is forever more my idol-you know that with a smile or the flick of her eyes what emotion she is feeling. She is the epitome of a southern lady waiting to be undone. After two Academy Awards this may be one of her best performances. However, it is Richard Gere who steals the scenes in my opinion. This is, indeed his best performance, and he is believable as a man who wants to be someone he can be proud of. Bill Pullman who plays the man who wants Laurel's heart is a duplicitous man who will do or say anything to win Laurel back.
And what about the dog, Jethro?
Peter Travers has the best lines in his critique of the film,
"Of special pertinence right now is the new light the film sheds on marriage and the doubts it engenders. Who hasn't asked, What happened to the person I married?"
Highly recommended. prisrob 03-23-08
The Brave One (Wide screen Edition)
An Officer and a Gentleman (Special Collector's Edition) |
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| "Sommersby with Richard Gere & Jodie Foster" | 2007-04-01 |
| - Reviewed By morin72 |
| One of my very favorite romance movies that left me guessing "is he or isn't he her husband" until the very end! |
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| "Sommersby" | 2007-01-16 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3NJAB8Z7C29WU |
| I like it because of the mistery and sensibility of the story. Jodie Foster as always is one of my favorite actressess. |
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 "Time I'll never get back..." | 2006-10-03 |
| - Reviewed By crazyfists |
This movie helped me understand a few things. First, not all period pieces are worth their weight in gold (I kind of already knew that)...Second, Jodie Foster can't do all the work on her own...and Third, Richard Gere is horridly overrated. I've never been a fan of Gere but this film really pushed my dislike for him over the top. Sure, I like some of his movies, but he's along the same vein as Tom Cruise to me...he sure knows how to pick a film but he should let someone else do his acting.
The story of Jack Sommersby (Gere) who returns home from the war a changed man quickly goes from interesting to absurd. His wife Laurel (Foster) is distant from him, and Jack even at times seems to wonder why, yet it's obvious through conversations taking place between Laurel and Orin (Pullman) that Jack was a very bitter and abusive man before heading off into war. So the question raised is WHO is this Jack Sommersby, well better yet, is he even Jack Sommersby at all?
WELL, I was bored stiff through most of it...fell asleep once actually, and was borderline irritated with Bill Pullmans performance which, if it had been left out on the cutting room floor altogether would have been a blessing in disguise since his every movement is atrocious. I guess I'm the minority here but to me, `Sommersby' is one to skip, miss, avoid and just plain forget. |
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| "One of the best romantic dramas I've ever seen" | 2006-06-08 |
| - Reviewed By goldtobird |
| Intense-loved it! I went in not expecting much- Richard Gere has a bad track record and I'd never really heard of this movie-but was pleasantly surprised and very drawn in by the love story and the mystery. Great chemistry between Richard Gere and Jodie Foster illuminates an already strong plot, not to mention their great acting. This is the best acting that I have seen Richard Gere put out so far, and in this movie there's everything to catch and hold a viewer's attention-passion, romance, suspense, fighting, even a trial. That is not to say that it is a loud movie-it's not, which explains its relative obscurity. But it has something for everyone, both the males and the females. And I especially appreciated the fact that it did not fall all over itself with the love story-that is the center of the movie but in the end it's the story of two people, not of their love, which is the way it shoudl be. Delicate, crafted, and oddly moving, it ends with a bittersweet ending that lifts this movie into one of the best movies of its kind that I've seen. |
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| "Very effective and dramatic romance" | 2005-12-22 |
| - Reviewed By wuivre_eternelle |
A complete new vision of the South after the defeat from what we could imagine if we only knew « Gone with the Wind ». This little town and its one plantation gets its master back but he is different. The community, blacks and whites together, is going to invest all it has to re-plant the plantation in ... tobacco. A collective enterprise coming from the southerners themselves. That is a modern vision, probably not what really happened. No carpetbaggers, just plain more or less honest southerners who want to live and who want their community to find a new future, and this community is able to accept the two racial groups working together and the Blacks to become landowners. The Ku Klux Klan is shown as rather feeble. It probably was a lot harsher, if we believe history books. An identity imbroglio and a murder accusation later the main hero is going to be hanged. He is tried by a jury in a court presided by a black judge. I find that a little bit fast, hardly two or three years after the Civil War, and the judge is in his fifties. Modern rewriting too. All that to produce a very strongly emotional romance that has all the necessary details to work marvellously, even if there is no epic or tragic dimension, just plain dramatic. But dramatic is good enough to be emotional. We can do without tragedy all the time. And epics are kind of superreal to be emotional. In other words an interesting rewriting of the Reconstruction in the South. It could have been like that if ... But the problem at the time was that if ... precisely.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Université Paris Dauphine, Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne
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| "Well worth seeing" | 2005-02-23 |
| - Reviewed By cindysmusicstudio |
| This movie is a wonderful drama/romance set just after the civil war. Richard Gere and Jodi Foster are amazing and this is a tear jerker for sure. I love the court scene with James Earl Jones. Worth the watching just for that. This will make you think and leave you teary eyed for sure. I highly recommend it. |
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| "A beautiful story magnificently crafted and acted" | 2004-11-16 |
| - Reviewed By bearcub8 |
| I had always loved the French film THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE from which SOMMERSBY finds its source.I like SOMMERSBY far better now recast in the post Civil War period with a far more romantic story expertly played by Jodie Foster and Richard Gere.This film is beautifully crafted with breathtaking cinematography and a truly delicious soundtrack to enhance the intense emotion of the heartbreaking story.Few movies make me consistently cry.That is not the case in SOMMERSBY.Foster and Gere do it everytime!Bill Pullman's supporting role is played with appropriate smarminess.A TRULY EXCELLENT FILM. |
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