The Giving Tree (2000) Reviews

• An unusual mix of comedy and dark reality

  krkemp2002-02-16

  I thought this was a good movie. I thought the acting was good for the most part and I really liked the soundtrack. I found the movie to be an unusual mix of light comedy about a group of old friends getting together with their various personality clashes contrasted against a look at the dark realities of the existence of pure evil in this world. But the movie also had a dramatic side as well. The violence in this movie was very hard to watch but needed to be shown to help viewers understand what happens to Emily. I think the main message of the movie is that some good can come out of even the most horrible things. The movie was also trying to show that although you can never be completely protected from the existence of evil in the world, you have to continue on and search for the goodness in the world. I gave this movie an 8 out of 10.

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• Brutally bad

  JohnSeal2001-03-13

  This exercise in Gen X angst is unbelieveable, overwrought, poorly written, badly acted, and has one of the most annoying soundtracks you'll ever hear. Every time there's a lull in the inane patter (which is frequently) another overamplified and undernourished alternative folk song saturates the soundtrack. One of the worst films I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through.

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• lifetime or abc family fare - not a horror movie!

  jeffa1232015-04-21

  if you're like me and come to IMDb to check ratings for movies found in the $5 dollar bin 10 movie horror collections, then i can stop you right here. despite it's inclusion in "10-Film Horror Pack V.3", this is *not* a horror movie. it's more like lifetime or abc family movie of the week. also note that it has at least 3 titles: "giving tree", "brutal truth" and "shaded places" as for the film itself, regardless whether it's mislabled as a horror, it's a really bad film. i can't recall anything i've seen in any genre that was less compelling than this. my two word review is "who cares!?" there are too many characters with too many back stories to get into any level of development. you get a few lines here and few lines there that are supposed to make you care about these people the premise is too contrived. **spolier** a bunch of high school friends are invited to one of the girl's mountain house (years later) for a reunion. they all show up and then she hangs herself in the front yard. they put her body in the barn and then spend the next several days talking about her and each of their relationships with her. zzzzzzzzz. 90 minutes or whatever it was felt like about 5 hours. it has an annoying hipster soundtrack cut in between and/or over every scene. then there's the peculiar subplot of them kidnapping the blind neighbor's dog, only to have it accidentally die. blind neighbor is the principal from breakfast club. at the end you finally see what you knew was coming all along... the story line that ties it all together. someone else on here said: watch the first 5 minutes and the last 5 minutes and that's all you really need. i agree all in all for me a complete waste of time. i didn't like anything about this film

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• Good idea, bad foundation

  tzvish2002-11-10

  The film is good, nothing more. acting is pretty good, the only bad thing about this movie is that it has too much of a plot combined all together which makes the movie hard to just stare at and understand, each character has its own story which all stories are combined at the end. just another drama, watch this if its on TV and you are bored, thats what happened to me. watch the 5 five minutes and the closing 5 minutes, that'll sum up the movie for you

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• This movie was like an old, sour, carton of milk in your fridge. You know it's bad,

  filmwxr2007-05-22

  but you smell it anyway. This movie stinks! The characters were shallow, the acting terrible. I got sucked into this movie to see how long, and how many scenes, Christina Applegate, would last. In only 15 minutes, I had the Hollywood formulated characters and the end of this movie figured out. The writing was bad, bad, bad. The actors knew it. They read their lines reluctantly and like they were on a cue card. I got the feeling that every scene was a wrap. The story was weak and has been done to death. No pun intended. Very stiff acting, from some well known actors. I'd have to say, Moon Zappa was the most believable, and the neighbor's dog wasn't bad either. Molly Ringwold, as a seasoned actress, was at her worst.

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