Cheap Greenfingers (DVD) (Clive Owen, Helen Mirren) (Joel Hershman) Price

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Customer Reviews of Greenfingers

Slight but sweet, sentiment without sentimentality
Rottentomatoes.com, netflix, and Amazon reviews have taught me something astonishing: literate users of the latter services usually have better and more reliable taste than the professional critics collected on Rotten Tomatoes. Case in point: GREENFINGERS. Less than half the critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a favorable rating, but Amazon & netflix reviewers give it 4 ½ stars. Apparently we appreciate its typically British understatement, mild humor, and a story which may be slight of plot but which doesn't slight its characters. (Hmmm...these are qualities which fans of LOST IN TRANSLATION claim to find in that movie. Perhaps if GREENFINGERS' director were named Coppola instead of Hershman, then he would be up for an Oscar, along with Clive Owen, Helen Mirren, and the rest of the cast and crew.)

If you liked WAKING NED DEVINE or LOCAL HERO or any of a number of small, well-crafted British films about the character of ordinary people, you will probably enjoy this movie. It lacks gratuitous nudity, violence and profanity, graphic sex, special effects wizardry, and cheap shots at other cultures, but these omissions just make it better. The film is technically as self-effacing as the performances - - all in the service of story, rather than for calling attention to the makers' cleverness, or hipness, or at least what masquerades as such among the unenlightened.

This is a movie about growth and transformation, not about stasis. It is about people with the character to make the most of their situation in life, no matter how apparently bleak. It is about the heroism of daily struggle to find meaning and value in the small things of everyday life, about simple faith, about making a difference, about love, forgiveness, and redemption, and ultimately about what it is to be human. Four stars.

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A charming and beautifully written film - see it!
Once again I am left wondering if the NEW YORK TIMES reviewer saw the same film I did. Take my advice - ignore the review and see this film! Joel Hershman has created a real gem on a relatively tiny budget - $3 million - but there are no corners cut anywhere. The actors are beautifully cast, and create an entertaining ensemble effort. Clive Owen is, as all breathing females will soon attest, delicious to watch and David Kelly has all the frailty and humor that we saw in him in WAKING NED DEVINE. I am not generally a fan of Helen Mirren, but she was ideally cast here as a proper gardening British lady of a certain age. I was particularly impressed by Mr. Hershman's screenwriting for this movie - very compact, very funny and on a number of occasions very touching without being maudlin. A very rewarding movie going experience in a summer otherwise characterized by mind-numbing violence, speed and foul language. I am looking forward to Mr. Hershman's future work -

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Great
I love British romantic comedy, and of all the movies in the genre, this one is my absolute favorite. Not only is the plotline funny, it's smart; that is, there's plot besides boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. The movie also succeeds at being touching without dipping into sappiness--the Colin/Fergus friendship brings me to tears.

The quirky off-plot tidbits make me laugh aloud. Look for the great big guy playing in the dirt.

The cinematography is beautiful, as is the sexual chemistry between Colin and Primrose. Clive Owen is a fantastically sexy man, and one of my favorite things about British romantic comedy is that the women are enticing without looking like they belong in a magazine.

There are few movies I'd watch over and over again, but this is one of them.