Sybil (2008)

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 6/7/08 at 8:55pm

Anyone watching?

It's actually pretty good...Tammy Blanchard is such an incredible actress.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 6/7/08 at 11:39pm

I'm really annoyed that they chose to remake it when it was basically shown to be a fraud. Why not make a movie based on the many other books about people with DID that have not yet been refuted?

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/8/08 at 12:36am

I've been watching a little of it, but I just stopped.

Tammy Blanchard is excellent. The new script is all over the place, lacks a solid focus, and Jessica Lange is cold in the role of the psychiatrist... and has no lines around her eyes. She looks like a strange doll.

It's way more melodramatic than the original, and way less believable, despite Tammy's great job. And it has no heart.

I realized just now that it was Joanne Woodward's performance that gave the story its heart. She was warm, matronly, and we "took the journey" into Sybil's past through her incredibly caring eyes. Woodward wasn't "showing off" at all. She was just THERE, thinking, feeling and absorbing it all.

Jessica's (physical) eyes have been lifted, tightened and also freed of their emotional communication. Not that she ever had much in that department. I've always found her to be a very good actress, but not exactly "warm and fuzzy."

So, she's not a very good match in the duo scenes with Tammy (who has the showy role, and will likely get some Emmy love for it).

Jessica's not "phoning it in" at all, she's just... cold.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 6/8/08 at 12:47am

So were the little bookend pieces about finding the artwork supposed to debunk the debunking?
Basically, it was a reader's digest version. Some of the scenes were laughably bad, but more for direction/script than the acting. I mean, Blanchard was as good as anyone could have been in that role, but it is just so silly and melodramatic.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/8/08 at 3:06pm

I didn't think it was so bad, although I agree the direction left something to be desired. Of course, I was home in bed convalescing, so anything on looked good to me.

It doesn't look to me that she had something done to her eyes, but that she had something done above her eyes. It's not her eyes that look wacky to me, it's the eyebrows. Maybe a brow lift? I was trying to figure out it out the other day when I caught her Biography on A&E.

Whatever, though. Funny brow or not, I'd watch Jessica Lange read the phone book.
Updated On: 6/8/08 at 03:06 PM