Marvin's Room

Visiting an estranged sister who has caught leukaemia, might be only mildly traumatic, if it's all happening up there, in full colour make believe, at the movies.

Marvin's Room has everything the well balanced family should have; a demented bedridden father (called Marvin), a chain smoking, bristly daughter (played by Meryl Streep), who's seriously ill sister (Diane Keaton) has devoted her life to caring for her father, as well as a cheerily aged Auntie (Gwen Verdon), who like most of us periodically loses the plot.

And then there is a comic turn from Dr Wally played mischievously by Robert De Niro, not to mention Dr Wally's exquisitely confused brother, played hilariously by Dan Hedaya.

Lump in to Marvin's Room the astonishing actor Leonardo DiCaprio playing Meryl Streep's seventeen year old disaffected son, who's latest attention grabber was lighting very big, very hot fires in his bedroom, as a result of which he's now tied down in a loony bin, and you're likely to shake rattle and roll all sorts of community and family skeletons.

But even rattly skeletons can be good fun and the mood of Marvin's Room is almost entirely upbeat in spite of the underlying tensions; a sure sign of an intelligent and satisfying film experience.

Marvin's Room earned one Academy Award nomination for acting, for Diane Keaton's performance as the stay at home sister, but deserved at least two others for Meryl Streep and for Leonardo DiCaprio.

I'm no fan of Meryl Streep, her trademark foreign accent roles have only been annoying, but Marvin's Room reveals Streep's ability to play complex, subtle characters and is worth the price of admission alone.

Meryl Streep's performance in Marvin's Room is superb and as impressive as any we have seen from her.

Leonardo DiCaprio has had a short but spectacular career. Most may know him from his role as Romeo in Baz Luhrman's landmark William Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet, but his performance as a junkie in The Basket Ball Diaries was as heart wrenching as his role was as an abused boy in This Boy's Life. He also played the retarded lad in What's Eating Gilbert Grape unforgettably.

Marvin's Room has allowed Leonardo DiCaprio to again, apparently effortlessly, play an unsettled, sensitive youth.

Diane Keaton has come a long way and quite a few decades since Annie Hall, Manhattan and those trademark jackets, and is showing plenty of wrinkles for her troubles and age; crevices that, by Hollywood starlet standards, would compare with the Martian landscapes now being revealed on TV; a display that I'm sure will be heartening for all of those hesitant about undergoing the barbarities of cosmetic surgery.

The more movie stars to avoid the surgeon's scalpel for frivolous reasons the better!

Like Keaton's face, Marvin's Room shows life's wrinkles, and also the joy of life. Marvin's Room is about the way adversity can strengthen us and cause us to grow. A bit sad, but even more joyful, Marvin's Room is an inspiration, especially if you are considering setting fire to your bedroom.