Total Waste Of Time

Rating: 3/10 (1 October 2011)

I agree with the reviewers who found this movie contrived and phony.
To praise it, you first have to accept that Paul Giamatti's lawyer character, with whom we are supposed to sympathize, would commit the most execrable kind of legal malpractice and elder abuse. So far as the fraud goes, you have to wonder why the lawyer doesn't simply arrange to keep his wealthy elderly client in his own home, per his wishes, since he is well to do and could afford a full time live in caregiver. Why put him instead in a retirement home? To contrive what very little dramatic tension there is in this feeble tale.
Then, you also must believe that the evil absentee drug abuser gold-digger daughter of the elderly man can somehow turn out to be a fresh-faced cutie pie who's about ten years too young to play the degenerate mother of the 17 year old son. (You also must believe that the son has a full time hairdresser on the premises, as his strange bleached out 'do always looks the same, but this is the least of the problems.)
All in all, this movie is fake, false, and maudlin, bereft of realistic situations or characters. I gave it three stars seeing how everyone seems to feel obligated to say nice things about the actors, even if the movie isn't very good.