Nostalgia

Parental Rating: R

Contains: Language    Adult Content    

Jill's Review

Opens February 23, 2018

Runs 114 minutes

This movie is a collection of stories about love and loss and what people leave behind. It begins with Daniel (John Ortiz), an Insurance adjuster, arriving to help value the accumulated property of Ronnie (Bruce Dern). Ronnie doesn't see the point in keeping any of the junk he has collected over the years. He thinks everything should be trashed. The kids want to make sure that there isn't anything of value under the piles of junk he has gathered. Daniel is there to help the process along. Daniel then moves on to Helen (Ellen Burstyn). She has just lost almost everything in a house fire. As Helen says, she never thought she would have to make the split decision of what to keep in case of a fire. She manages to save some old jewelry and an autographed baseball. Helen takes the baseball to Will (Jon Hamm), an expert in collectibles. He helps her realize that the baseball is just an object and that she still has all of her memories. Will then heads home to help his sister Donna (Catherine Keener) clean out the rest of their childhood home as their parents have moved to a condo. Tragedy strikes while he is there and he and his sister must comfort each other through the loss. Are people really just the objects that they collect? What is more important - the things they leave behind or the memories?

I just saw this movie a few hours ago and I am still depressed. It starts out melancholy and nostalgic and slowly moves to depressing and even despairing. The cast is great. John Hamm and Catherine Keener are standouts. The stories are interesting but the whole thing made me sad and depressed. The movie is good. It is just hard to recommend such a downbeat movie. So, if you are interested in the superb cast of this film or the importance of our belongings after we pass on, then you might want to see this. Otherwise, you may just want to skip it and save yourself the sadness.

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