The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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One True Thing
Drama · Romance · 1998
A career woman reassesses her parents' lives after she is forced to care for her cancer-stricken mother.
Movie details
One True Thing
“Love What You Have.”
1998 Drama · Romance 2h 7m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.5 / 10
Community rating
A career woman reassesses her parents' lives after she is forced to care for her cancer-stricken mother.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over One True Thing?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
Drama · 2014
Told from the woman's perspective, the story of a couple trying to reclaim the life and love they once knew and pick up the pieces of a past that may be too far gone.
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
Drama · 2014
Told from the man's perspective, the story of a couple trying to reclaim the life and love they once knew and pick up the pieces of a past that may be too far gone.
Not Easily Broken
Drama · 2009
A car accident and shifting affections test the bond between a married couple.
Moonlight Mile
Romance · 2002
As he copes with the death of his fiancee along with her parents, a young man must figure out what he wants out of life.
Ordinary Love
Drama · 2019
An extraordinary look at the lives of a middle-aged couple in the midst of the wife's breast cancer diagnosis.
Remember Me
Drama · 2010
Still reeling from a heartbreaking family event and his parents' subsequent divorce, Tyler Hawkins discovers a fresh lease on life when he meets Ally Craig, a gregarious beauty who witnessed her mother's death. But as the couple draws closer, the fallout from their separate tragedies jeopardizes their love.
Nine Lives
Drama · 2005
Captives of the very relationships that define and sustain them, nine women resiliently meet the travails and disappointments of life.
We Live in Time
Romance · 2024
An up-and-coming chef and a recent divorcée find their lives forever changed when a chance encounter brings them together, in a decade-spanning, deeply moving romance.
Save the Last Dance
Drama · 2001
After the death of her mother, Sara moves to the South Side of Chicago to live with her father and gets transferred to a majority-black school. Her life takes a turn for the better when befriends Chenille and her brother Derek, who helps her with her dancing skills.
Departure
Drama · 2016
An English mother and her teenage son spend a week preparing the sale of their remote holiday house in the South of France. Fifteen-year-old Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother, Beatrice. She in turn is confronted by the realisation that her marriage to his father, Philip, has grown loveless and the life she knows is coming to an end. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other.
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Carl Franklin
Written by
Karen Croner
Meryl Streep
Kate Gulden
Renée Zellweger
Ellen Gulden
William Hurt
George Gulden
Tom Everett Scott
Brian Gulden
Lauren Graham
Jules
Nicky Katt
Jordan Belzer
James Eckhouse
District Attorney
Court is in session
Put One True Thing on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.