Word: plot
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Another problem with the ending is its abrupt shift to feminism. The authors construct a plot in which the issue of civil rights is entangled with the need to choose the right man. Although Charlie and Ian are always viewed as somewhat manipulative, their attempts to dominate Evelyn remain unquestioned until the final scene...
...soliloquy and strife, all bound up in an unsurpassed spectacle. Seen through the eyes of two Vietnamese characters -- a pimp and hustler of irredeemable cynicism called the Engineer (Jonathan Pryce) and a woman of unquenchable faith and optimism called Kim (Lea Salonga) -- the narrative fuses a crude soap-opera plot with subtle satire of relations between capitalism and the Third World. Big in cast (45), emotion and physical sweep, the story ranges from the neon vice bars of Saigon and Bangkok to the red- bannered propaganda parades and squalid re-education camps of the Hanoi regime. It embraces chaste Asian...
...sleight-of-hand plot, which requires the pair to keep marrying and separating, that redeems the picture. The film is so quick and busy that most of the time one forgets they are essentially no-accounts, not entirely bright or likable. Indeed, Simon's admission that they are based on historical models -- shoe magnate Harry Karl and starlet Marie ("the Body") McDonald, whose misadventures in multiple marriage titillated tabloid readers four decades ago -- renders the jolliness of his writing, and Rees' direction, all the more astonishing. They were, perhaps, a very odd couple, but not necessarily a fun couple...
...Louise, who had Down's syndrome and a defective heart. The baby died three months later. Though one test indicated no problem with the fetus, other, sophisticated tests that could have alerted doctors to her condition earlier were not performed. The state paid for her burial in a family plot, and local florists donated the flowers. Rachel and John have since moved to Virginia, and they are again trying to have a child...
Damage has a plot worthy of the best Harlequin romances, but Hart diminishes its effectiveness on this base level by striving to create prose that is so stylized it appears amusing. Her writing is so laden with excessive verbiage that, in the end, the author's style, rather than plot or characterization, dominates the book. In another author, that dominance might not spell disaster, but the only response that Hart's prose provokes is laughter...