Love Liza (2002)
Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Kehler, Sarah Koskoff, Kathy Bates, Stephen Tobolowsky, J.D. Walsh, Jimmy Raskin, Erika Alexander, Wayne Duvall, Cullen Douglas, Chris Ellis, David Lenthall, Daniel Farber, Kelli Garner, Shannon Holt, Annie Morgan, Kevin Breznahan, Jennifer Keddy, Maggie Valentine, Mark Hannibal, Trace Turville, Ernest Perry Jr., Joanne Pankow, Jim Wise
IHBM6Not bad
Following the unexplained suicide of his wife Liza, website designer Wilson Joel turns to huffing gasoline fumes and remote control gaming while avoiding an inevitable conflict with his mother-in-law.
My review · Reviewed 10/28/2022
This was one of the few films by Hoffman that I had not seen and I had been putting it off because of the lukewarm reviews. I think the reviews were deserved. In one sense Hoffman and Bates are fantastic in their roles. Hoffman plays a man who is ill-suited emotionally to handle the unexpected death of his wife. The film does a magnificent job portraying a man who has not fully grown up trying to navigate through a hellish part of his life. While our hearts ache for him the story is just not that compelling. The movie is 90 minutes long but it sure felt like two hours. Hoffman's next movie (Owning Mahowny) was probably a better overall portrayal of a man that is unhinged.