content: I had high expectations for this movie - I had read the book and knew that the cast had great potential. The actors were great in portraying their roles - from Annette Bening as the eccentric mother to Gwenyth Paltrow as the obedient daughter, but the plot of the movie missed the biting dark humor that had put the novel in the top 10 of my collection. I'm afraid that, if I had seen the movie before reading the book, I might not have read the book.