What did you think of "Hanging Up"?   Good 45% 131   Bad 31% 92   Somewhere in between 8% 22   Haven't seen it 16% 48 Total Votes   293

Verdict: Phone-y at its core, but nicely acted.

Details: Starring Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan, Lisa Kudrow and Walter Matthau. Directed by Keaton. Rated PG-13 for profanity and mild sexual themes. 1 hour, 32 minutes.

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Review: Given the impression fostered by the ads, "Hanging Up" looks as if it comes from the same girl-movie ghetto as "The First Wives Club" and "Soul Food." It seems to be a sidesplitting comedy about three sisters (Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow) trying to get along by reaching out and touching one another over the phone.

Oh, and if you really pay attention, you may notice their irascible father (Walter Matthau), whose mortality is becoming something of a strain, in the background.

In truth, "Hanging Up" has a lot more in common with such selfish-aging-parent-and-confused-adult-child movies as, well, "Nothing in Common" (Jackie Gleason and Tom Hanks) or "Memories of Me" (Alan King and Billy Crystal).

The real focus here is on the increasingly dependent, certainly dying father — a once-successful screenwriter long ago divorced by his wife — and his love-hate relationship with his middle daughter, Eve (Ryan).

All three of his daughters are major achievers, 21st-century style. But, tellingly, only Eve has managed to combine a career (event planner) with a family. Georgia (Keaton), the eldest, is some unholy cross between Gloria Steinem, Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters. She's too busy planning the fifth anniversary of her magazine — the aptly named Georgia — to bother with doctors and hospitals.

Maddy (Lisa Kudrow), the youngest, is an adorable ditz with a recurring role in a soap opera. Her most enduring emotional involvement is with her oversized Newfoundland.

That leaves Eve, who, we soon see, was always Daddy's favorite but never could come to terms with his selfishness and aggression. The dual demands of his dementia and his inevitable death are, for her, overwhelming.

Somewhere beneath the insistently breezy script of the Ephron sisters (Nora and Delia, who based the story on Delia's novelistic memoir of their father's death) and Keaton's brisk direction, there's a far more painful and genuine story. You can see it in Ryan's raw emotional breakdowns, in the naked fear in Matthau's eyes, in Keaton's deft sendup of what happens when the culture's long-designated caregivers — the daughters — opt for a career over bedpans and hand-holding.

In other words, this is a serious, worthy theme, in many ways as old as "King Lear." It's the sort of picture that can — and does — handle some humor but, at heart, dares to ask some difficult questions.

Unfortunately, the result is a decent, often entertaining yet ultimately disappointing film. "Hanging Up" backs off when it should've hung in.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service

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