George, played by William Hurt, is a very successful and well recognized college professor in American literature. Ellie, his daughter, portrayed by Renee Zellweger, has always admired her father and now as an adult is following in his footsteps with a budding career in journalism. Unfortunately, Ellie's creative and energetic mother, Kate, played by Meryl Streep, comes down with a serious illness. Her father insists that Ellie put her career on hold and come back home to care for her. Ellie reluctantly agrees and then is consistently shocked to find out the truth about her parents.

I liked this picture and thought it was informative, compassionate and educational for all ages. Unfortunately, the bizarre rating board was compelled to rate this movie an R, although there was no sex, no violence and just a little profanity. How strange that other movies with death and destruction can be rated PG-13. I just don't get it!

From the visually impaired point of view, this picture starts out with Ellie, the main character as a child, then jumps to the present time with her as an adult. This wasn't so tricky, but then the scenes jump around some more, this time with Ellie being interrogated by some official. Initially a sighted assistant will be needed to talk you through some of that, but relatively soon you'll ease into the jumping around. There were only three main characters with distinct voices and totally different personalities. This was good. The dialogue was easy to follow and the story moved at a reasonable pace. There was a five or seven minute scene at an amusement park where I needed a running description from my sighted assistant, but these kind of struggles were few and far between.

This is a good, solid Hollywood film, worth seeing. I'll give it a 7 and encourage you to check it out.