Thelma and Louise this isn't. This original HBO film, Earthly Possessions, based on the Anne Tyler novel, is a sentimental road movie that requires more than a little suspension of disbelief (that they're able to escape in the first place is a miracle). Yet Sarandon, even in the most disappointing of roles, is a phenomenal actress who will make us believe just about anything. And so she does here; even with the trademark two-dimensionality of Tyler's characters, Charlotte Emory is a woman you can't help but care about. Dorff, with his rough-and-tumble good looks, is fairly believable as the irresponsible hooligan, and despite the unlikelihood of a relationship developing between these two, you are sucked into the romance right with them. Throw in a couple of car chases and a pregnant girlfriend, and you've got an entertaining, lighthearted film. While the ending is a little disappointing, fans of Tyler's novels and her other books on film (Saint Maybe and Breathing Lessons) will surely be swept away. --Jenny Brown

The film was based on Anne Tyler's novel. I found the movie better than the novel but that isn't saying much. Alot of things were changed for the screen. I don't remember Charlotte and Jake being romantically involved in the book. Susan and Stephen had no chemistry. Why do filmmakers insist on making a romance when there doesn't need to be one? I appreciated the conversations when she seemed to look out for him like a mother would. But that was ruined when they threw in the lame sex in a cheap motel. This was not fair to the characters. Jake was too hyped up and alarmed about his baby to start having sex with a woman he didn't know. Charlotte was a church going woman who wouldn't have touched Jake with a ten-foot pole. The romance factor wasn't believable and turned the movie from sensible to fluff.

I wished they could have spent more time on the road because that was the most entertaining. Once they picked up Mindy, I was asleep. I tried to give this film a chance but seeing how the book was less than average, I sort of got what was coming to me. Stephen Dorff is always a terrific actor. No one can make a character become their own like him. He and Susan would have been a knock-out duo on another kind of movie. This one came up short. It's a nice little family movie and it has all the usual sappiness of many chick films. But THIS chick felt it could have been a lot better.