My One and Only

Plot synopsis:
In New York City in 1953, Anne Deveraux lives with her bandleader husband Danny, their 15-year-old son George, and Anne's somewhat older effeminate son Robbie. After catching Danny in yet another affair, Anne leaves him and takes the children with her.
Anne embarks on a road trip across the United States, in search of a husband to fund a new life for her and her boys. George serves as the chauffeur. They first travel to Boston and Pittsburgh. Anne has a string of disastrous attempts at relationship. After finding that a former suitor now deems her too old to be of interest she becomes desperate and dispirited and chats up a man in a bar who turns out to be an undercover house detective. He takes her for a prostitute and charges her with solicitation.
Meanwhile, George meets with his father who comes into town on a tour. George asks him to take him back to New York but Danny turns him down because he is often on the road for his work. George concludes that Danny does not love him. George also learns that Danny had sent money several times, but Anne resolutely returned it each time.
Running low on funds, Anne tries her luck in St. Louis where her sister lives. The sisters have a very strained relationship but Anne tries to make the best of it and takes a job at a paint store and becomes engaged to the owner. It turns out, however, he is mentally ill and already married. Anne is paid off by the man's family for her trouble. As Anne readies to get on the road again, this time for Los Angeles, George informs her that he is staying with Anne's sister, whom he'd already cleared it with. Anne and George argue bitterly and Anne, resigned, accepts his decision and leaves with Robbie, who now serves as the chauffeur.
Near Albuquerque, mother and son get robbed by a couple they picked up for gas money. Robbie phones George to tell him what happened. In discussing it with Anne's sister and her husband, George discovers Anne had left money with them for his board and care. He takes the remaining money and meets Anne and Robbie at a Greyhound bus station somewhere in the Southwest.
The three arrive in Los Angeles and settle into a shabby apartment. Anne comes home one day to find Danny waiting for her. He asks if she still loves him and says he wants her and the boys to come back to New York. She replies, "I don't know if I love you but I do know I don't need you." Danny then departs extending an open invitation to return if she changes her mind.
Anne forges ahead and the family gets work as extras in a movie. Anne catches the eye of the movie producer and manages to get Robbie slated to try for a starring role. George thinks maybe his mother was right all along and everything will turn out fine. But that evening Anne gets a call and learns Danny has died of a heart attack. George flies back to New York to attend Danny's funeral and gets Anne's blessing to stay there and attend his former prep school on scholarship.
Soon, however, he realizes he belongs with his family and returns to Los Angeles unannounced. George finds Robbie having difficulty with a scene in a movie. As he helps Robbie recite his lines, George is discovered as a talented actor. Robbie gives up acting and goes to work in costuming. In epilogue, George reveals that he is a contracted Hollywood actor and has changed his last name to "Hamilton," which was his father's real last name. He realizes that Anne, Robbie and he didn't need anyone to take care of them, that they could take care of themselves and that they were going to be just fine.

Tags: romantic, autobiographical, flashback

Review:
After catching her husband in the act of infidelity, Anne Deveraux takes off with her two teen sons and embarks on an adventurous road-trip hoping to find a man who would take care of them.
While Anne's attempts fail, she remains high-spirited and hopeful through her struggles until she learns a most valuable lesson, that the best person to take care of you is you.Writer Charlie Peters has wonderfully encrusted this period piece with plenty of humour that keeps the viewer amused all the way.
It tells of a 1930's high society mother (Renee Zellwegger - never better) who walks out on her unfaithful husband (Kevin Bacon) after discovering another woman in his bed.
(The "making of" featurette on the DVD is a wonderful look into the making of a higher budgeted 'indie' movie by the way.) But there is one serious flaw to the film, and that is Renée Zellweger's performance.
Whenever the character undergoes pressure, she gets all wobbly and quirky, like a character actor playing a supporting role - but she's not only the lead, she's what the picture is all about, so this is definitely a flaw that threatens to derail the whole project.Fortunately, it doesn't.
As good as Ms. Zellweger is, the movie is stolen by the two very gifted young actors who portray her sons; Logan Lerman and Mark Rendall.
After 20 minutes, you want to be with this family for the rest of the film.This is the kind movie that depends on writing and Charlie Peters has given us a convincing and at times, very witty screenplay.
Really enjoyed this story about an unusual family that got more interesting as the movie moved along on their journey from New York City to end eventually in Hollywood, California.
To learn in the end that this may have been based on some real life adventures of actor George Hamilton was especially enjoyable; and, its not spoiling or taking away anything from this story to make that fact known here.
The separation of a middle age mother from her cheating husband has a familiar ring; but, how she and her two sons cope with her disconnection from her husband's money and support in 1953 is a sometimes funny and sad story to watch develop..
After she walks in on her cheating,no good S.O.B. of a husband & his current "item",she packs her clothes,takes her two teen aged sons out of school,and proceeds to leave New York,forever to make a new life (and perhaps to find a new hubby,which won't be easy,as her better days as a singer/sex symbol of twenty-something years ago are far behind her).
Her two sons (both by different men),George (played by Logan Lerman),who is an aspiring writer,and Robbie (Mark Rendall,who nearly steals the show),a closeted homosexual,who is toying with the idea of acting.
Kevin Bacon has some nice,but brief time as Anne's cheating husband,Dan Deveraux.
From what I've read, it's very loosely based on a time in George Hamilton's life as a young teen.
(He is not in this movie, not even as a cameo.) Renee Zellweger plays the unlikely role of mother to two teen sons.
The movie doesn't tell you in the beginning that it is based on a real person, but at the end of the film we learn one of the characters is a real person whom became an actor.
The movie has funny and dramatic parts.It's about a wife, Anne Deveraux, whom is tired of her cheating husband.
There were no elements of this movie that I would have changed.Renee Zellweger embodied her character perfectly as the proud mother of George and Robbie Hamilton.
How many stories like this have we seen so far: mother (Renee Zelweger) finds out that her husband (Kevin Bacon) is cheating on her and leaves him.
Travelling from city to city, and as many things happen to them, she cannot find anyone to 'sign the deal.' The further away they go from NY, the more the mother learns about her family and herself.Very conventional, this is a road film where the family is moving from one coast to the other (NY to LA).
As the narrator, he tells us what he thinks about his mother, family relations, the trip, etc.A good family/drama movie.
At one point she tries her hand at working as a salesclerk in a department store with disastrous results.In My One and Only, Anne, who is used to living the good life decides to leave her husband, taking with her limited funds, some jewelry and her two sons, including son George (who supposedly authored the story as a biographical sketch).
They head west in a new Cadillac and attempt to cope with a series of not amusing, somewhat absurd situations as she tries to land a husband to support them, evincing little interest in how loving or suitable the men she meets might be as husbands or fathers to her sons and, apparently??, without ever divorcing the husband she left behind.
Anne hurts her foot in one scene, the producer rushes over and based on that he agrees to give her second son a chance to play a lead role in another movie although he possesses no talent or meaningful experience.
George intervenes and the rest, as they say, is history, the details of which would require a spoiler alert  although as a hint, things took a turn not dissimilar from events in another great Rosalind Russell movie, Gypsy,as Baby June cedes her place to her sister.Logan Lerman and Kevin Bacon turned in decent performances.
Ann Deveraux (Renée Zellweger) lives with her womanizing band leader husband Danny (Kevin Bacon) and her two sons George (Logan Lerman) and Robbie (Mark Rendall) in NYC.
She's a flaky clueless mother and goes on a cross country road trip looking for a new man.This shows that Renée Zellweger is actually a real actresses.
Of course, the events happening are not so wild and crazy as among the first mentioned types, but it is still catchy to follow - first and foremost thanks to 2 great performances: Renée Zellweger as Ann Deveraux (Zellweger has proved herself to be a versatile and talented actress) and Logan Lerman as George Deverau (so far, his 2nd best performance after Charlie Kelmeckis from The Perks of Being a Wallflower).
Decent but not a Must See. I did not care for the writing in this movie, much of the dialog was uninspired and most of the characters were something of a charactature.The performances were good, almost without exception.
The story really began to drag toward the end but then suddenly sprang to life and finished like a highlight reel in the last few minutes.This is not a bad film and if you feel drawn to it for any reason, it is probably worth seeing.
The poster and the presence of Reneé Zellweger in the leading role might suggest My One and Only is a romantic comedy, and even though it has some characteristics from that genre, the truth is that it is in fact something different...but not necessarily good.To start with, I was surprised when I found out that the film is a semi-biography of actor George Hamilton...or better said, of his mother Anne, whose search of love made her to undertake a trip around the United States in the early 50's.However, despite the competent performances, I did not like this movie, mainly because I did not find that story to be interesting.The story from My One and Only is so light that I never cared about the characters and their search of love and economical support.The obsessive fans of Hamilton's might find this story about his teenage life, which explains the big attachment he had with his mother, interesting.But as a casual spectator, I did not find this movie satisfactory as a family drama nor as a "road movie".Nevertheless, I have to admit I liked the performances from Zellweger in a character which reminded me of the one she interpreted in Appaloosa; from Logan Lerman, who is much better in here than he was in the atrocious Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief; from Mark Rendall as the step brother of Lerman's character; and from the underrated character actors Chris Noth and David Koechner.However, even though the performances are good, they are not enough for rescuing My One and Only from its emotional apathy and narrative inertia.In conclusion, I cannot recommend My One and Only, because despite its good intentions and solid performances, it frankly bored me pretty much.I think that this movie needed more influence from Hollywood and less from the real life.I am not against the realism, but there are occasions in which it is necessary to sacrifice it in order to make an entertaining film experience..
A lot of humorous lines make the conversation interesting to follow, and the heroine's string of unlucky encounters also play to good laughs.But quite a few items irked me, from the overly black and white depiction of lecherous men, to the pale acting of the two sons, to the frightening number of times Zellweger was told she was 'beautiful' (we get it, middle aged men are horny, she's blonde, but puh-lease, her chemically/surgically enhanced frozen-featured face simply isn't attractive - then again, she does get the word 'old' bandied at her a few times so I guess the director thought a trade off was necessary).Overall, the film really lacked in-depth characterization and relied too much on its fickle road movie charm to wind its way to a somewhat trite and tepid ending..
The whole premise of this less-than-mediocre movie deals with a rich spoiled smirky blonde who has a philandering husband, walks out and shleps her two sons, one of whom is George Hamilton as a teen, across the country looking for someone in her past who might take the place of her philandering husband,smirky quirky lying Kevin Bacon.
That alone was a great big turnoff because I'm a saint of a husband.In the meantime, one son, George, constantly yearns to return his fancy boarding school near his philandering father while the other son,gay as gay can be, is an aspiring talentless actor whose future in the theater/movies is as bright as a 100 watt burnt out bulb.
But it's George, whose last thoughts deal with becoming a movie actor,who possesses strong tungsten but doesn't realize it because the light switch had never been activated.The film's dialogue is nitwitty at best.
The story idea of this movie wasn't bad but the execution was poor.Renee Zellweger seemed stiff and her character was an irritation.
Logan Lerman did a good job as one of the sons, however I doubt that the other son, in the 1950s, would actually have acted as he did in this film.
Dan is a boy inside that looks like a grown man.One of the sons is Logan Lerman as George Devereaux.
They needed a new car to leave town.Anne is one of those elegant 1950s women who doesn't think she should work, and therefore her road trip becomes one to find a suitable husband, one who can support her.
The summer is filled with surprises, and that is what makes this movie so interesting, we never quite know what the next surprise is.Really good, interesting movie, one of the better ones I have seen lately.SPOILERS: Anne and the two sons end up in Los Angeles and, to make ends meet become extras in movie production.
Here's a story of a lovely lady, with two boys, and both of them were special, just like their mother.Such is the premise of this 1950s film, which chronicles the beginning of actor George Hamilton and his eccentric yet elegant mother, portrayed by Renee Zellweger.
The interactions and jealousies between them are so real, I'm still thinking about it.The only critique of mine is Kevin Bacon, who seemed a bit weak in his role, but maybe that was what the director wanted.With great use of time and place, this film needs to seen and appreciated more, especially by those who like 1950s-era movies.
Sweetie and I were childless last night so we sneaked out to see girlfriend Renee Zellweger's latest movie, "My One and Only." It also has Kevin Bacon playing her no account philandering, band leader husband.I didn't know anything about the movie so I was expecting a romantic comedy.
Its kind of like a cross between a road movie, romantic comedy, coming of age, and biography.
Basically Zellweger plays the part of Anne Devreaux who dumps her husband, played by Kevin Bacon and sets off across America with her two teenage sons in search of a new husband.She gets humiliated, arrested, and dumped a bunch of times but always keeps her chin up.I loved it.
Fed up with moving from state to state, a young George Hamilton(played by Logan Lerman) decides that enough is enough, and chooses St. Louis over the open road.
True to his word, while Anne and her other son, George's half-brother Robbie(Mark Rendall) are by then long-gone(having resumed their cross-country trip in a baby-blue Cadillac), George sits down for an old-fashioned midwestern dinner with his midwestern sponsors(Anne's sister Rose and her husband), looking fixedly at a midwestern life ahead of him.
His mother, an ex-wife of a womanizing bandleader(played by Kevin Bacon), might not have been the ideal parent for most children, but he was the ideal parent for George(this wisdom would come much later in life), an aspiring novelist, who unknowingly endorses his alternative childhood during an oral report on what he did during the summer(by now he's in New York).Television codifies us, and in the early-fifties, mothers like Dorothy Malone and Donna Reed ruled the airwaves, mother who stayed at home and tended to their husband and children.
Twice a divorcée, Anne is back in the game; a little bit older, but nevertheless beautiful, as her search for a husband takes the mother of two from one screwball comedy situation to another.
Like all children who grow up and realize that their parents did the best they could, George Deveraux, otherwise known as George Hamilton, the guy with the tan, is also the guy who loved his mother, and in "My One and Only", the moviegoer can see how a generous spirit is the deciding factor that separates comedy from drama..
At the end in his narration he informs the audience he got a contract in the movies as an actor and decided to change his name to Hamilton, like in George Hamilton, whose life the film is loosely based.The film, directed by Richard Loncraine, is mildly amusing.
The film takes a nostalgic look at the way we lived in that era, where things were less complicated in the country.
Another road trip film, but this is somewhat different,it is based on the events of one summer, when Renee Zellweger & her 2 teenager sons make a cross-country trip.
Logan Lehrman is the teen age lad that eventually become the actor George Hamilton , He is relatively new to the screen, He is good enough to have a long career in front of him.The remaining cast are all top performers headed by Eric McCormack,Mark Rendell, Chris Noth,Nick Stahl.Steve Weber, Troy Garity plus others from film & TV.
This movie was inspired by the real-life story of George Hamilton.
After his mother got tired of his dad's affairs, she took him and his brother on a 50s road trip adventure in search for a new husband, on a real 1953 blue Cadillac Eldorado convertible.This movie used authentic props like cars, clothing, music, vocabulary, accent, color shades and hues, buildings, and everything straight from the 50s.
Renew Zellweger stars as actor George Hamilton's mother in the story of what happened when Hamilton 's parents divorced and she began what amounted to an extended road trip to find someone to take care of her and her two boys.I'm kind of at a loss as to why I should care about this story.
In all honesty if it wasn't for the actors, Zellweger and the two young men playing her sons, I would have walked out.
As the film begins, 15-year-old George Devarux (Logan Lerman) began to tell the story of how he would end up in a car showroom with his older half-brother Robbie (Mark Rendall) to the car salesmen.It would turn out that his parents, band leader father Danny (Kevin Bacon) and mother Anne (Renee Zellweger) has gone their separate ways after Anne, who has never taken an interest in her sons' personal lives and interests, caught her husband in an affair with her taking the sons with her away along with the cash from her safe deposit box.
The cash was to be used to buy a car to be on the road for both mother and sons, but the salesmen were initially suspicious of George's reasoning even after he had finished telling his story.
That is where his mother came into the scene.The road trip would eventually come to pass, with the 15-year-old George driving despite having no driving licence of his own.
He would eventually return and an incident which occurred when his mother and younger half-brother Robbie were on route to Los Angeles had him reuniting with them.It is a film based on actor George Hamilton's early life on the road with his mother Ann and brother, as told to his friend Merv Griffin.
What happened to the 15-year-old George Devarux in the end in the film mirrors the real George Hamilton's early days in acting in the early 50s, with a real sense of that decade shown in the cinematography and especially on Renee Zellweger who plays the mother Anne in the film.
For the most part the film looks and feels like the era it's set in.
No!)The film is "loosely" based on the life of George Hamilton and it's possible that Mr. Hamilton's life was filled with stock characters and some events that seemed like they'd make for a good movie.