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Callie Khouri, who penned the Oscar-winning script for Thelma and Louise, returns to "chick flick" territory for her directing debut, an adaptation of Rebecca Wells’s megaselling novels Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Little Altars Everywhere. Sandra Bullock stars as Sidda, a successful, 40-ish playwright who is estranged from her mother, Vivi, a gorgeous, charismatic, alcoholic, and thoroughly unstable southern belle (played, at different stages of her life, by Ellen Burstyn and Ashley Judd). Vivi belongs to a quartet of feisty, hard-drinking matrons (Maggie Smith, Fionnula Flanagan , and Shirley Knight fill out the group) who call themselves the Ya-Yas -- a quasi-mystical sisterhood they formed as girls growing up in a small bayou town. Deciding it’s high time that Vivi and her daughter mended their fences, the Ya-Yas whisk Sidda back to Louisiana, where they reveal the secrets behind Vivi's emotional state and explain how the Ya-Yas sustained each other through life’s travails. Khouri, who also wrote the script, borrows some elements from the decidedly darker Little Altars, but the film’s story and spirit hew much closer to the wish-fulfilling Divine Secrets. There is no shortage of rueful sentimentality as the narrative veers, sometimes clumsily, between flashbacks and present-day events. Missing are the sharp details of southern provincial life that make the books (particularly Little Altars) so vivid, but the performances keep the film crackling. Judd is incandescent as the young Vivi, as is Burstyn in the character’s older incarnation, while veteran actresses Smith, Flanagan, and Knight provide delightful support. Bittersweet and funny, The Divine Secrets is a warmhearted tribute to the unbreakable bonds between mothers, daughters, and lifelong friends. Kryssa Schemmerling

All Movie Guide

Screenwriter Callie Khouri makes her directorial debut with this adaptation of a pair of popular novels by author Rebecca Wells, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Little Altars Everywhere. Sandra Bullock stars as Sidda Lee Walker, a New York playwright who opens a can of emotional worms with her estranged, boozy mother, Vivi (Ellen Burstyn), when she discusses her painful childhood and particularly Vivi's less-than-enviable mothering skills in a Time magazine article. The eccentric Louisiana drama queen Vivi has already been barred from her daughter's oft-delayed wedding to her fiancé, Connor (Angus Macfadyen), so the article sends her into a rage. Coming to the rescue of the relationship are Necie (Shirley Knight), Caro (Maggie Smith), and Teensy (Fionnula Flanagan), a trio of bickering women, who, along with Vivi, formed a secret society of feminist empowerment and friendship 60 years earlier that they dubbed the "Ya-Ya Sisterhood." The Ya-Yas kidnap Sidda and bring her home to Louisiana, where they reveal to Sidda via a carefully maintained scrapbook her mother's painful past (with Vivi portrayed in flashback by Ashley Judd), effecting a rapprochement between mother and daughter. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood also stars James Garner. Karl Williams

Los Angeles Times

A work of excess and passion, an untidy sprawl of a motion picture that is sometimes ragged, occasionally uncertain, but -- and this is what's important -- always warm, accessible and rich in emotional life. Kenneth Turan

New York Observer

Despite the heart it wears on its sleeve, this movie brings back real women, and beneath the taffeta and the taffy, there's the actual stuff of real human conflict. Rex Reed

Product Details

• UPC: 085392330829
• Source: WARNER HOME VIDEO
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English, Français
• Subtitles: English, Français, Español
• Time: 1:56:00
• Sales Rank: 11,348

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Ultimate Tear-Jerkers Collection
• Movies for Her 3-Pack (3pc) / (Btb)

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