Robert Harling took the liberties of directing this very good but sometimes misunderstood follow-up to the 1983 classic.<br /><br />Shirley Maclaine reprises her role as Aurora and in my view is just as good and sometimes better in this performance then she was in the first movie. Juliette Lewis takes the role of Melanie and in my opinion, I thought she played the best character next to Aurora because we have to remember that Melanie is the only child that has never really known her mother so you can automatically feel the pain of the character. George Newborn plays Tommy, and the character of Tommy is in prison, for what, we don't really know. Mackenzie Astin plays Teddy and is really the only child that is slightly happy and normal of the three.<br /><br />This is 13 years after the first and the storyline is pretty much that amount of time later, maybe a little more because Melanie is pretty much grown up as well. It goes through what each of Emma's kids have been through in those years and where they ended up. Aurora's stress level with these kids is a record high, she has one in jail, one is pretty much a teenager who hates her guts and one is doing slightly well for himself but that doesn't help with the other two (lol).<br /><br />I also loved the story with Aurora and Rosie. I thought that was beautiful because even though Rosie was the maid, her and Aurora were like family and when Aurora was carrying Rosie in the rain to take her home for the final moments of her life, that was truly beautiful.<br /><br />The story lines with Jerry (Bill Paxton) and Patsy (Miranda Richardson) is just purely for entertainment and laughter, i especially like the airplane fight, people are mixed reviewed on that fight but i laughed so hard.<br /><br />But the emotion of the film, like Aurora making the photo albums, her spreading Rosie's ashes on the beach (my favorite), Jack Nicholson also makes a nice appearance, and finally Aurora's death. All of these elements make for a great movie and succeed.<br /><br />People who write bad reviews or even mixed reviews, probably don't understand the story good enough. This sequel was really not meant to be an exact copy of what the original was 13 years before this, which is why i think people looked at it differently. This is also why it went under a different name, because it was the same characters but a completely different plot and story.<br /><br />Overall, a movie that should be given more credit because it is just as good as the original.