... So, surrounded by a theater full of 30-something women on Sunday afternoon, I didn’t anticipate much from the film.  And as it started, I was still iffy.  It seemed that first-time director Sharon Maguire was being a  little too cute and trying a little too hard to match the structure of the book. 

But soon, that all fell away.  Maguire is clearly not a great film stylist.  But that slowly became the charm of the film as it went from being a big, hyped film to an art house find before my eyes.  Zellweger’s performance had all the curves of real life.  Hugh Grant gave the most restrained, game free performance I’ve seen for him in a while.  And Colin Firth was drier than any martini.  And all that was good.