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100Though Mom is ditzy and, at times, irritating, we come to recognize her as the family's most original creative spirit.
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88A beautifully rich performance by Meryl Streep, [18 September 1998, p. 57]
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80One True Thing demonstrates that the power of simple things, the transcendent nature of the ordinary, can make for riveting filmmaking.
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80An uplifting, superbly acted and intelligent family drama.
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78A formulaic family melodrama whose craftsmanship and sensitivity to its characters raises it to the level of sublime group portrait.
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75It is the craftsmanship that elevates One True Thing above the level of a soaper.
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75This is not a happy tale, and its ending will have moviegoers reaching for every handkerchief they can find. But its compassion is as clear as the talents of the folks who made it.
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75When we first see Meryl Streep's happy homemaker in One True Thing, she's a domestic dinosaur circa late '80s, a regular mommy monster. [18 September 1998, p.3E]
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75Although the plot rarely excels, the actors bring enough to their roles to transform this motion picture into a satisfying weeper.
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75Thrown into exalted company, Zellweger easily holds her own in the film's most difficult role.
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70The framing story is pointless and almost insulting, even though it's part of former New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen's novel.
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70It's a film whose virtues--particularly its rare, intelligent portrayal of the relationship between two generations of women--outweigh its faults.
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70In a confused world, this is a movie with answers.
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70Bluntly, poignantly believable.
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70As sensitively written, fluidly directed and expertly acted as it is, and as elemental as its dramatic conflicts may be, One True Thing has trouble breaking free of its limitations as a small-scale, modestly aimed family drama.
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70Admirably restrained melodrama.
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67In the end, One True Thing suggests, families can be healed even in loss. This may not be a true thing, but at least this emotional drama offers up hope, sweet like one of Kate Gulden's tasty cakes.
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63You may find yourself weeping toward the end, and, later, you may also find yourself wondering why. The revelations are staggeringly obvious.
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60Hobbled melodrama with obvious "Terms of Endearment" pretensions.
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60The vicarious catharsis offered by this adaptation of Anna Quindlen's novel is as efficient as that of any family-affected-by-illness drama.
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50No matter how tactful and sensitive Franklin's direction, he has made himself complicit in a polarization that panders to anti-intellectual populism even as it caters to women's movement backlash.
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50Quindlen's book is wry and deeply sad in its prose, but watching actors run this very simple maze is significantly less entertaining, or convincing.
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40This might have worked if the director and lead actress had the kind of intense mutual understanding that, say, Ingmar Bergman had with Liv Ullmann, or John Cassavetes had with Gena Rowlands.
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40The movie's themes are enormously resonant, which makes its doddering tastefulness that much more frustrating.
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38Even director Carl Franklin, an artful purveyor of sterner stuff in "One False Move" and "Devil in a Blue Dress," can't prevent One True Thing from descending into chick-movie hell.