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Now in their golden years, four Southern belles Vivi (Ellen Burstyn), Caro (Maggie Smith), Teensy
(Fionnula Flanagan) and Necie (Shirley Knight) have remained steadfast friends for 40 years through fair and stormy weather. In their childhood days, they sealed their
pledge of friendship and mutual support with a mini "blood compact."
With the rituals was born the Ya-ya Sisterhood. Though a survivor of emotional tempests in her younger years, Vivi is devastated when her daughter Sidda (Sandra Bullock), a well known New York playwright, tells in a Time magazine article about her difficult childhood in the hands of her abusive and unstable mother. Vivi "writes off" her daughter whom she has not seen for a long time and whose fiancé she has not met, Sidda decides not to invite her mother to her upcoming wedding. Vivi's three close friends are aghast at the worsening relationship between Vivi and daughter Sidda. They decide to adapt unconventional intervention measures. Shanghaied after being drugged, Sidda wakes up in their midst in Lousiana. They persuade Sidda to know more about the tragic circumstances surrounding her mother's past behavior so as to better understand her. They give Sidda access to their scrapbook of mementoes, which they say contain their "divine secrets." Vivi's husband Shep (James Garner) and Sidda's fiancé Connor (Angus MacFadyan) also try to bring mother and daughter together. Since both Vivi and Sidda are proud women, will their well-meaning relatives and close friends succeed in their reconciliation efforts?
Translating a novel into a movie is no easy task. Since the film is based on Rebecca Wells' two
novels, one with the same title as the film and the other, "The Little Altars Everywhere," the moviegoer can expect the task to be doubly difficult.
Yet Academy Award winner Callie Khoun in this, her directorial debut does also the screenplay. In spite of wearing many hats, she succeeds in communicating a bittersweet and touching story of family life. Probably and partly because the theme of mother-daughter conflicts always has universal appeal, especially to women. The powerhouse cast led by Sandra Bullock, Maggie Smith, Ellen Burstyn, and especially Ashley Judd as the young Vivi give commendable performances. However, there is a lack of coherence and plausibility at times. Moreover, the innumerable flashback of three generations in Vivi's family can be confusing.
Mothers and daughters who have allowed tensions and resentments between them to simmer "below
the surface" have much to learn from this movie.
There was no love lost between Sidda and her mother until friends persuaded Sidda to try to know and understand the causes and circumstances of her mother's aberrational behavior. Her father told her to remember the good times she had with her loving but eccentric mother. From him also, Sidda learned humility. She swallowed her pride, took the first step and visited her mother. On her part, the mother Vivi learned to be humble by accepting where she has erred and not blaming her own mother entirely for her disappointments. With acceptance comes forgiveness. With reconciliation, catharsis. Another theme explored by the movie is friendship. Truly, friends who are supportive, unselfish and true are like heirloom jewels—beyond price.
(Date reviewed: September 13, 2002)
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