(Rated PG-13, 101 mins.)
If you knew you had one week to live would you change things? Lanie Kerrigan (Angelina Jolie) is a very Marilyn Monroe looking feature reporter at a Seattle TV station. On the surface she seems to have it all; a baseball-superstar fiancee (Christian Cane), a gorgeous apartment and a shot at a big network assignment. Except for one problem: she just can’t work with her camera man Pete (Ed Burn), and he’s crucial to getting the big job. So with lots of get-a-room-already-sexual-tension and snippy-banter that really works, Lanie and Pete go at it until one day she runs into Jack, a street bum/Prophet (Tony Shalhoub) that gives her life-altering information. Suddenly with her days numbered life becomes a shallow-less examination through Lanie’s family, friends and lovers. The story is unique, the movie moves with genuine energy as each character knows their role and has it nailed. But it’s the relationship dynamics between the very philosophical Pete and the self-absorbed Lanie whose emotions change in act three creating an inappropriate 360 degree spin. This is a problem. Suddenly he wants somebody that is everything he doesn’t represent and vice versa. Yet, Burns and Jolie have real friction-heated chemistry as their characters Laine and Pete, managing to save the dilemma. It should be noted that Stockard Channing’s role as Deborah Connors the grand dame of TV (Laine’s mentor) is right-on as a Barbara Walters meets Martha Stewart power house.