''Hanging Up'' is a 2000 American comedy-drama film about a trio of sisters bonding over their curmudgeonly father with whom none of them were close. It was directed by

Diane Keaton Diane Keaton (''née'' Hall, born January 5, 1946) is an American actress and director. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over six decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Glo ...

, and stars Keaton,

Meg Ryan Meg Ryan (born Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra; November 19, 1961) is an American actress. She began her acting career in 1981 when she made her acting debut in the drama film ''Rich and Famous''. She later joined the cast of the CBS soap oper ...

Lisa Kudrow Lisa Valerie Kudrow ( ; born July 30, 1963) is an American actress, producer, and screenwriter. She rose to fame for her role as Phoebe Buffay in the sitcom ''Friends'' (1994–2004), which has since been named one of the greatest television cha ...

and Walter Matthau in his final film role. The film is based on

Delia Ephron Delia Ephron ( ; born July 12, 1944) is an American bestselling author, screenwriter, and playwright. Life and career Ephron was born in New York City, the second eldest of four daughters of screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron. Her movies i ...

's 1995 novel of the same name.

Plot

Georgia Mozell, Eve Marks and Maddy Mozell are adult sisters. Self-obsessed Georgia (Keaton) is the editor of her own wildly successful self-titled women's magazine. Maddy (Kudrow) is a vacuous

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

actress who has always struggled for her own identity. Party planner Eve (Ryan) struggles to balance her family life with her career while also caring for their father. All three sisters are still wounded by their parents' divorce, after many years of acrimony, which resulted in their mother Pat (Leachman) essentially abandoning them all. Despite being as busy with her own life as the others, Eve is the only one of the three who deals with the long term hospitalization of their cantankerous seventy-nine-year-old father, Lou Mozell (Matthau), when he enters the early stages of

dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

and has to be hospitalized. Lou has a history of alcoholism and womanizing, and despite a hurtful incident years earlier, Eve takes charge of her father's care. In addition to answering his frequent, often incoherent phone calls, she visits him in the hospital nearly every day. Maddy occasionally visits as well, but also saddles Eve with the care of her large dog, Buck. Flashbacks show Eve, Maddy and Georgia visiting Lou one Christmas after he attempted suicide after Pat left him. Eve confronts her mother, who admits she only had children because she believed that was what was normal, but discovered it wasn't actually what she wanted out of life. She goes back to her father and they go Christmas tree shopping together. Lou's joyful nature helps Eve to forget the pain of her mother's rejection. In another flashback, Lou drunkenly crashes the birthday party of Eve's young son, Jesse, and when Eve tells him to leave he angrily tells her that she was a mistake. Eve's husband, outraged, forces Lou to leave and declares he's never to return to their house again. Fed up and overwhelmed with caring for her father, siblings and an especially demanding client, Eve disconnects all the phones in her house. At an event Eve planned, where Georgia is the keynote speaker, Georgia uses Lou's illness to promote her magazine and claims that she's been more involved in his care than she actually is. Afterward, Maddy, Eve and Georgia argue viciously, until they're halted by the news that Lou's health has worsened. All three sisters rush to the hospital and reconcile at their father's bedside. As they wait for Lou to emerge from a coma, they try to remember the name of an actress whose name Eve has been struggling to recall for weeks. Lou suddenly says it's June Allyson before passing away. Some time later, Eve, Maddy and Georgia are together in Eve's kitchen for Thanksgiving. Eve teaches Georgia how to make her stuffing recipe, which Georgia had previously stolen and given to a newspaper as hers. Georgia and Maddy begin to playfully throw flour at each other, and Eve takes a moment to enjoy being together with her sisters before joining in.

Cast

as Eve Mozell Marks **Paige Wolfe as Young Eve *

as Georgia Mozell **Katie Stratton as Young Georgia *

as Maddy Mozell **Talia-Lynn Prairie as Young Maddy * Walter Matthau as Lou Mozell **

Charles Matthau Charles Marcus Matthau (born December 10, 1962) is an American actor, director, producer, and writer. He is the son of actor Walter Matthau and actress/author Carol Grace. Matthau gained recognition for his directorial work encapsulating humanit ...

as Young Lou *

Adam Arkin Adam Arkin (born August 19, 1956) is an American actor and director. He is known for playing the role of Aaron Shutt on ''Chicago Hope''. He has been nominated for numerous awards, including a Tony (Best Actor, 1991, '' I Hate Hamlet'') as well ...

as Joe Marks *

Cloris Leachman Cloris Leachman (April 30, 1926 – January 27, 2021) was an American actress and comedian whose career spanned nearly eight decades. She won many accolades, including eight Primetime Emmy Awards from 22 nominations, making her the most nomina ...

as Pat Mozell **Kristina Dorn as Young Pat * Jesse James as Jesse Marks *

Edie McClurg Edith Marie McClurg (born July 23, 1945) is an American actress and comedian. She has played supporting roles in the films ''Carrie'' (1976), ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' (1986), and ''Elvira: Mistress of the Dark'' (1988), and bit parts in ' ...

as Esther *

Tracee Ellis Ross Tracee Joy Silberstein (born October 29, 1972), known professionally as Tracee Ellis Ross, is an American actress. She is known for her lead roles in the television series '' Girlfriends'' (2000–2008) and '' Black-ish'' (2014–2022). She is ...

as Kim * Maree Cheatham as Angie *

Myndy Crist Myndy Crist (born February 5, 1971) is an American actress who has appeared in more than 50 films and television series. In 2019, she received a Jury Best Actress Award at the 2019 Riverside International Film Festival for her role in the 2018 f ...

as Dr. Kelly *

Celia Weston Celia Weston is an American character actress. Weston received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her performance in '' Dead Man Walking'' (1995), and also had supporting roles in more than 40 movies, including '' The Talented Mr. Ripley ...

as Madge Turner * Stephanie Ittleson as Victoria

Reception

The film was released in the United States on February 18, 2000, to relatively negative reviews. It made $15.7 million over the

Presidents' Day Presidents' Day, also called Washington's Birthday at the federal governmental level, is a holiday in the United States celebrated on the third Monday of February to honor all persons who served as presidents of the United States and, since 1879 ...

opening weekend, opening second behind ''

The Whole Nine Yards "The whole nine yards" or "the full nine yards" is a colloquial American English phrase meaning "everything, the whole lot" or, when used as an adjective, "all the way", as in, "The Army came out and gave us the whole nine yards on how they use ...

''. ''Hanging Up'' opened in 2,618 theatres at an average of exactly $6,000. It dropped out of the top 10 in its third week of release, and lasted eight weeks in its domestic release. Domestically grossing $36,050,230 with an extra $15,829,814 from worldwide audiences brought its international total to $51,880,044. The film has a 12% "rotten" rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 85 reviews with an average rating of 3.75/10, The critical consensus reads, "Though the screenplay and the novel it's based on were both written by the same person, critics say ''Hanging Up'' is an unsuccessful adaptation. The acting is praised as solid, but is ultimately unable to save the film."

References

External links

* * {{Nora Ephron 2000 films 2000 comedy-drama films American comedy-drama films Columbia Pictures films Films about death Films about sisters Films based on American novels Films directed by Diane Keaton Films produced by Laurence Mark Films scored by David Hirschfelder Films shot in California Films with screenplays by Nora Ephron Films about father–daughter relationships 2000s English-language films 2000s American films

Plot

Cast

Reception

See also

References

External links