Robert Altman shuffles together several Raymond Carver short stories, or at any rate several sets of characters from them, and in so doing transforms pithiness into garrulity -- three hours' worth. At the same time he has upped the levels of kookiness and smuttiness, and lost touch with Carver's common folk. One storyline -- featuring Bruce Davison and Andie MacDowell as parents of a nine-year-old hit-and-run victim, Jack Lemmon as the long-lost grandfather, and Lyle Lovett as a spiteful cakemaker -- stands out from the rest. Which means long stretches of impatience in its absence. The assumption, the hope, seems to be that the movie will add up to more than the sum of its parts, but any TV soap opera can boast a firmer grasp of structure. To say nothing of a less dusty camera lens. Anne Archer, Fred Ward, Frances McDormand, Tim Robbins, Madeleine Stowe, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine, Tom Waits, Lily Tomlin, Lili Taylor, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Penn, Robert Downey, Jr. (1993) — Duncan Shepherd
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