Life or Something Like It (2002)

I ran across this movie on cable and it caught and held my attention. Angelina Jolie is a local TV reporter with Lonnie Anderson peroxide blonde helmet hair who is intent on reaching national network fame. Her opening comes just as she is reassigned to the one cameraman she can't get along with (Edward Burns) and she interviews a street prophet (Tony Shalhoub) who tells her she has one week to live -- and his detailed predictions have always eerily come true. She's shaken to reexamine the vapid lifestyle she's chosen to make up for her unpopular childhood, where she perceives her father's love has always been greater for her perfection-obsessed sister. Her facade begins to crack, and Burns' character becomes so sympathetic when you get to know him that she begins to fall in love. I thought Jolie's character was embarrassing herself by losing her objectivity in a transit strike story, but it worked out in the end and she gets to pursue the most sensitive and touching interview with Stockard Channing's Barbara Walters character. Jolie's acting surprised me: She can do more than primp and pout in a moué; she can actually convey the suggestion of emotions! Her coming to terms with what really matters in addition to the truth of her father's love (if not her sister's) makes this a movie that tries and in ways succeeds to convey values that mean something, and it deserves full credit for that. Tony Shalhoub is fine (though we know he is capable of more nuance.) I was going to give this movie three stars but the end really did make me laugh from happiness. Analyze this movie if you must, but if you really like it, you really like it. Four stars.