Additional information for One True Thing, which has a domestic theatrical release set for September 18, 1998. The film is being distributed by Universal Pictures and has not yet been rated. One True Thing has a total running time of 127 minutes.
13
Argentina
M
Australia
14A
Canada
14
Chile
U
France
12
Germany
M
New Zealand
14
Peru
M/12
Portugal
12
South Korea
13
Spain
12
Switzerland
15
UK
R
USA
PG
Singapore
L
Iceland
S
Finland
11
Sweden
127min
Cosas que importan
Argentina
Cosas que importan
Mexico
Cosas que importan
Peru
Cosas que importan
Spain
Életem értelme
Hungary
Annem Ugruna
Turkey
Contre coeur
Canada
Contre-jour
France
Det som är sant
Finland
Familiensache
Germany
Jedyna prawdziwa rzecz
Poland
Kati alithino
Greece
La voce dell'amore
Italy
Mama si fiica
Romania
Podia-te Acontecer
Portugal
Prava stvar
Slovenia
Se mikä on totta
Finland
Um Amor Verdadeiro
Brazil
September 18, 1998
USA
February 13, 1999
Germany
February 19, 1999
Spain
February 25, 1999
Israel
February 25, 1999
Singapore
March 04, 1999
Netherlands
March 05, 1999
Denmark
March 18, 1999
Argentina
March 18, 1999
Germany
March 23, 1999
Switzerland
April 09, 1999
Iceland
April 30, 1999
Brazil
May 27, 1999
Australia
June 02, 1999
Kuwait
June 04, 1999
Italy
June 09, 1999
France
July , 1999
Czech Republic
July 29, 1999
New Zealand
November 13, 1999
Japan
December , 1999
UK
December 16, 1999
Portugal
January 26, 2000
Finland
March 12, 2000
Sweden
October 16, 2009
Italy
No taglines exist for this title.
A career woman reassesses her parents' lives after she is forced to care for her cancer-stricken mother.
A very true movie. So true I could not watch it until now. From someone who has been there, seen it, lived through it, I can say it was written by someone who was there as well. The story is of a young woman, Ellen (Renee Zellweger) who comes home for the weekend from her busy life in the city and with a possible writing career in front of her to find out from her father (William Hurt) that her mother, Kate (Meryl Streep) is ill. She is about to have cancer surgery and he expects that she will drop her life and come home to take care of her mother. She will need help after the surgery and the following chemotherapy. Ellen does not know what to think. She is a writer, as her father, an english professor, does he not understand what her life and future career mean to her? She has never seen self sacrifice before, or so she thinks. As her mother grows ever weaker Ellen gets a glimpse into her mother's life. She is involved with the community on special ocassions, she refinishes furniture, makes curtains, cooks everything wonderful, and even comforts friends in times of challenge, but most important of all, she makes her husband's life possible. At first Ellen tries to step into her mother's shoes and has a tough time for she is more like her father, she writes, she doesn't cook, clean, and comfort. Soon she finds her mother's shoes are a lot harder to fill than she ever realized. As she gets better at caring for her mother and the home front she realizes just how little her father does at home. Many of us see what many probably don't see, he is not completely self-scentered he simply can't imagine his life without her and can not be around to watch her fade.Ellen does not know this, at one point she believes he is having an affair and becomes very angry with him. She believes all he can do is think about himself. At Thanksgiving her father surprises everyone by bringing home two writers he admires, seemingly oblivious to the fact that this might well be his family's last Thanksgiving together. He asks that his wife whip up some great appetizers, as though she were in any shape to do so, which leaves Ellen to make them. Ellen is enraged with the unexpected visitors, famous or not, she wanted a quiet family Thanksgiving. Ellen becomes confrontational at every turn with her father. He wants everything to remain the same, he's not willing to help out with anything, and to top it all off, she believes when he calls to say he is working late that he is with "the other woman" who drops him off in front of the house later that evening. Ellen finally has a bitter confrontation with her father in a diner that ends up with him walking away stating that she will no longer be needed she can return to the city. Before this can even be discussed her mother is hospitalized. They are told the cancer has spread and there no need to continue therapy, all they can do now is make her comfortable.Her mother has noticed what is happening with Ellen and her father and calls her into a room to talk. She looks Ellen in the face and tells her that she does not know anything about her husband that she doesn't know. Life and marriage changes as it moves along and you find yourself accepting things you told yourself you'd never do. That it can be unbearable at one point and joyous the next. That you reach a point where if you remove someone from your life all it does is leave is a great big hole in your life, you live for your family, the ones you love. She then tries to tell Ellen things she might need for later in life and Ellen does not want to hear them. Her mother begins to cry and tells her that she's tired of people not letting her talk when she wants to talk, when Ellen agrees, she thinks a minute then says, I said it already.Ellen is charged with caring for her mother and giving her pains pills, morphine, now that the pain is much worse. Even though Ellen knows she's dying, and that she is in a wheel chair, and that a nurse comes in to help her, all these facts are really made quite clear when her mother calls out for the nurse who is not there and Ellen enters the bathroom to find her mother in the tub unable to get out. For the first time she is not seeing her bulky sweaters and cap; she sees her mother with her half bald head and barely covered bones. She is so skinny that Ellen can easily lift her from the tub. At that moment Ellen realizes exactly what is happening; to know something is one thing, to see it is almost too real. After she gets her mother settled into her chair she asks Ellen for a pain pill, as she takes it she whimpers, "This is no way to live" in her weakened voice that tells volumes. She asks Ellen to help her make it stop,Ellen's mother is now staying down stairs in a hospital bed. When she sleeps you hear her struggling to breathe, eating is no more, drinking is barely so, and talking is barely so. Then we see Ellen take out the small dish we all have for our cancer victims to put a little bit of applesauce to try in vein to get them to eat anything, and to help get medications down. Then she takes out the morphine and begins to smash the pills, first one, then another, then another. Then stands there knowing she can't do this. As much as she knows it would be a kindness, as much as she knows it would make it easier for her mother she can not do it.Her father comes home early, Ellen takes a bath and when she comes down we see her father wash out a small dish, wipe it and put it back in the cupboard. He tells Ellen, "your mother says this is not living, and she was right." Ellen goes into to be with her mother and finds awake and she tells her, "I love you." In the morning Ellen's father comes downstairs to find Ellen holding her mother's hand and staring, he realizes she is gone.Throughout the movie we have seen Ellen telling a man the story of her mother's illness but we don't know who he is, a greif counselor? A priest? It is a man wanting to know how Ellen's mother died of an overdose. Ellen has been providing stories that make it impossible for her father to be responsible, while not implicating herself either.In the last scene Ellen is at her mother's grave planting bulbs in the freshingly dug up soil. Her father approaches her and watches what she is doing and asks her how it went. She tells him it went fine that the man will also want to speak to him as well. Her father then says he admires Ellen's strength, he wanted to do it but could not. Ellen hears him but it doesn't sink in right away. She finally lifts her head and says, "I didn't do it, I thought you did it." They both take a moment and then shake their heads while stating, "oh, she couldn't have, she was too weak!" Ellen's father then shares how much he loved her, that she made his world warm and comfortable, she was his One True Thing. As the movie concludes her father attempts to help plant the bulbs and they work the soil together.
Carl Franklin
Director(s)
Anna Quindlen
Karen Croner
Writer(s)
Jesse Beaton
producer
Leslie Morgan
executive producer
Harry J. Ufland
producer
William W. Wilson III
executive producer
Producer(s)
Cliff Eidelman
Composer(s)
Kate Gulden
Meryl Streep
Ellen Gulden
Renée Zellweger
George Gulden
William Hurt
Brian Gulden
Tom Everett Scott
Jules
Lauren Graham
Jordan Belzer
Nicky Katt
District Attorney
James Eckhouse
G.A. Tweedy
Patrick Breen
Oliver Most
Gerrit Graham
Senator Sullivan
David Byron
Harold
Stephen Peabody
Dr. Cohen
Lizbeth MacKay
Clarice
Mary Catherine Wright
Evelyn Best
Sloane Shelton
June
Michele Shay
Muriel
Bobo Lewis
Louisa
Marylouise Burke
Marcia
Marcia Jean Kurtz
Diana
Diana Canova
Santa / Mayor
John Deyle
Ellen - Age 8
Hallee Hirsh
Brian - Age 4
Jeffrey Scaperrotta
Casey
Todd Cerveris
Nurse Teresa (as Anna Alvim)
Anna Carolina Alvim
Hospital Nurse
Julie Janney
Tweedy's Secretary
Susan Stout
Magazine Executive
Greg Hedtke
Magazine Executive
Christian James
Halloween Girl
Lauren Toub
Halloween Girl
Ashley Remy
Graduate Student (as Saul Stacey Williams)
Saul Williams
College Student
Julianne Nicholson
College Student
Amber Kain
Nari
Yolande Bavan
Party Kid
Benjamin Andrews
Party Kid
Kathryn Walsh
Violinist
James E. Graseck
Club Bandleader
Doug Allen
Club Band Member
Kirk Driscoll
Club Band Member
Paul Pimsler
Director(s)
Karen Croner
Writer(s)
producer
Leslie Morgan
executive producer
Harry J. Ufland
producer
William W. Wilson III
executive producer
Producer(s)
Composer(s)
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