HANGING UP

In HANGING UP, Meg Ryan stars as Eve Ephron, a frazzled woman concerned about her dying father (Walter Matthau) who must also deal with her job, her family and her two sisters. Her older sister, Georgia (Diane Keaton), has her own self-titled magazine and is a business success. Her younger sister, Maddy (Lisa Kudrow), is an actress in a television soap opera, the latest in a long string of short-lived careers. Their mother left them at an early age and wants nothing to do with them now. The three have never been really close to their father, but Eve’s soft heart has taken the time to know him best.

While her father’s situation is turning Eve’s life upside down, Georgia and Maddy have their input, but really offer no help. They know Eve and, just like everyone around her, they take advantage of her kindness, though perhaps not entirely. As Eve is leaving the hospital after a visit with her father, she calls her sisters and hits another car while discussing the situation with them. The other car’s driver is a doctor, who tells Eve to call his mother because she will know how to handle the situation.

At work, Eve is pressed to find a speaker for an upcoming event. However, the group doesn’t want just anybody, they want her sister, Georgia. While trying to get hold of Georgia, Maddy arrives and leaves her huge dog for Eve to watch. At this point, the girls’ father has “escaped” from the hospital, where he is later found at their old house, now owned by someone else. As Eve tries to deal with all these events, she begins to break down. She receives a phone call from the doctor’s mother, thinking that it is to settle the damage done to his car. The woman tells her that her son informed her that Eve had no mother and needs a “shoulder to cry on.” In the hospital cafeteria, a crying Eve tells the woman her problems, and the woman responds with care and sympathy, adding, “Sometimes you just need to hang up.” She also calls her son and tells him to disregard any damage done to his automobile.

Eve goes home and begins to stop the dog from chewing up the phone, but after hearing a pointless message on her answering machine, she takes it, and all other phones out of the walls and shoves them in a closet. All of them, except the one upon which the dog is chewing. She relaxes, reminiscing about good times with her father. She gets back on track, and Georgia agrees to come out and speak for her event. Maddy decides to come out as well, and the three are soon together again.

At the speaking engagement, Eve arrives in her Land Rover, Maddy in her convertible and Georgia in a limousine. During her speech, Georgia begins to cry for the audience about how difficult it is for her to run her magazine knowing that her father is dying. This infuriates the other sisters, particularly Eve, because she is the one who has been alongside him the entire time. The three have a tremendous fight until they are interrupted by a phone call, letting them know that their father has slipped into a coma. With their father dying, Maddy and Georgia realize how selfish they were, and together all three realize the need they have for each other.

HANGING UP has many humorous points, as well as some realistic drama that causes the viewer to flounder between drama and comedy. Meg Ryan plays her usual charming role (SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, YOU’VE GOT MAIL), and the other actors follow suit, with Lisa Kudrow playing a role similar to her role as Phoebe on FRIENDS, and Diane Keaton playing a powerful executive as she did in BABY BOOM. Of course, Walter Matthau plays a “grumpy old man.”

Keaton, who also directs the film, plays older sister to Kudrow, though in “flashback” scenes of their childhood, Georgia is only about 10 years older than Maddy. Ryan’s character, Eve, has redeeming qualities as she struggles to care for her father and anyone else who asks her for anything. The movie stresses the importance of family, though there are rough spots in the movie when the characters dive into their own emotions and come out “swinging” at each other.

There are several strong profanities and obscenities, including two repeated by a child when he hears his drunken grandfather shout them over the phone. Characters also use the phrase “G*d!” often, and there are several lewd remarks made by the “mentally unstable” father, though his condition is never clarified. During one of Eve’s flashbacks, she recalls her father spoiling her son’s birthday party when he comes in drunk, knocking things down and eventually swearing over the phone. Later, the boy is shown repeating the profanities into his play phone. Despite these darker scenes, the movie gives a humorous, though only semi-realistic, depiction of three sisters coping with the approaching death of their father. HANGING UP primarily showcases the stereotypes that audiences have come to expect from these actresses.