Surrender, Dorothy | 
| Director: Charles Mcdougall
Actors: Diane Keaton, Tom Everett Scott, Alexa Davalos, Lauren German, Josh Hopkins
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.94
Buy Used: $2.07
You Save: $12.87 (86%)
New (42) Used (36) from $2.07
Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 16557
Format: Ac-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 99
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 87 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 14493
UPC: 043396144934
EAN: 0043396144934
ASIN: B000EQ45C4
Theatrical Release Date: January 1, 2006
Release Date: May 9, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Academy Award Winner Diane Keaton (1977 Actress in a Leading Role Annie Hall) delivers one of the most dynamic and astonishing performances of her career in this moving story about the bonds of friendships the strength of a mother's love... and the power of letting go.With the simple phone greeting "Surrender Dorothy" Natalie (Keaton) and her daughter Sara (Alexa Davalos) share the most intimate details of their lives. But when Sara's life is tragically cut short by a car accident Natalie's grief is compounded by a shocking discovery: she may not have known her daughter after all. Determined to unlock the secrets of her daughter's heart Natalie travels to the ramshackle beach house where Sara spent her summers and camps out with Sara's friends including lontime childhood pal Adam (Tom Everett Scott). But can she capture her daughter's essence and more importantly find a way to heal?System Requirements:Running Time 86 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 043396144934 Manufacturer No: 14493
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Powerful story: Not in Kansas anymore May 22, 2008
Fern Staton (Pollock Pines, Ca.)
Maybe it was the scene where the mother held her daughter's shoes, as if she could somehow make her return.
Or maybe it was the scene where the mother worked frantically, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, believeing that
if she just stayed busy enough, the pain couldn't penetrate her cheerful exterior.
Or maybe it is that my own daughter's best friend is a gay man and I envy her that rare relationship that only a gay
friend can provide.
Surrender Dorothy.
I believe this was one of Diane Keaton's most powerful performances. She is a self-confident mother of a daughter who is
amazing. The two have this bond that appears to be rock solid and is in so many ways, until she find's the diary. And who do
our most quarded secrets belong to after we are gone? Do they need to be exposed?
Watch the movie and decide for yourself. Grab a tissue.
Tale of love and loss of a friend and daughter September 9, 2007
K. Stein (arizona)
Amazing story of how a mother and dearly friends recover, remember and survive the loss of a daughter/friend after a fatal accident. Deep secrets are revealed, pain surfaces and is resolved and a mother learns there are things she didn't know about her daughter. It will take you on an emotional ride both joyfully and with alot of despair. All of those who loved her will surface for air and be better for knowing her and each other. Bring tissues, but well worth it!
 yellow brick load May 14, 2007
J. W. Hickey (Manhattan area)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Did anyone find Daisy Buchanan charmingly eccentric when she ran down her husband's mistress and got away with it because of her social status, whose actions led to the murder of Gatsby? Or was she merely a moneyed brat with egocentric tunnel vision who expected everyone around her to accept her selfishness and perhaps even love her for it? Today, the latter interpretation may elevate what Daisy represents from social commentary to political commentary about America's grasping myopia, but the yuppies and unmatronly "witch from Jersey" in this movie are merely too delighted with their own shallowness to spend two hours with.
The film begins with a car crash, followed by a flashback of reckless driving as a central character giggles with self-delight behind the wheel. She and her closest male friend (gay, of course, in these plots, whose mostly mute boyfriend is a contrived composite from subscription-theater Broadway)continue to giggle condescendingly when they encounter the (sensibly wary) owner of a summer house and an ice cream vendor equivalent to the "socially inferior" husband of Daisy Buchanan's mistress. We are intended (according to Diane Keaton in one of the voice-over commentaries) to interpret the yuppies' shrugging disdain as "vitaity" and free-spiritedness: a youthful elan indulged before tragedy makes them grow up. If the audience does not find their frivolousness quite as charming as they do themselves, the rest of the movie does little to keep the viewer watching.
The mother, played by Keaton, is rooted in anything but credible reality. She has it all: money, an attentive lover, a dubious mutual admiration with her daughter, and utter disregard for the grieving or general feelings of others. It is easy to see where her daughter acquired her own immaturity and self-centeredness. Apparently, the focus of the plot is to show how the mother's insensitive meddling (rationalized as grief) forces the yuppie munchkins to grow up and face their thirties. But her treatment of them is rightfullly met with their bewilderment. This woman is not Auntie Mame or Mother Courage; she's merely a monster.
Like daughter, like mother. Keaton's character is driving when she is told on the phone that her daughter is dead. She responds by letting go of the steering wheel and pumping her expensive car's gas peddle, causing a multi-car crash-up. The film's director says in his commentary that he wanted to dramatize the impact of the death on the mother. But no mention is made thereafter of legal or physica implications of this "accident." The character point has been established, and "Daisy Buchanan" gets away without a scratch nor do any of the yuppies (who don't attend their best friend's funeral because the mother does not invite them!) make the slightest reference to this second car calamity and its implications: narrative indulgence erases any semblance of real-life credibility. This becomes a motif throughout the rest of the film.
Pauline Kael once dismissed Bette Davis tear-jerkers like DARK VICTORY because she found it difficult to surrender to the alleged suffering and alleged sacrifices of the super-rich. But this movie more closely resembles Ken Olin's TV soap BROTHERS AND SISTERS, in which self-involved "pretties" confide secrets to each other and the audience waits patiently for those confidences to be betrayed. That's entertainment?
A physically attractive cast does the best it can, but is burdened by roles that only exist in an upscale TV and Broadway fantasy world. Wearing a daughter's ruby slippers to her funeral and an elaborate kimono for a beach party is not quirky; it's not even sitcom; it's a TV commercial during a sitcom.
Toto, from the git-go these losers aren't in Oz any more (the plot's POV seems more that of a stereotyped gay playwright than that of a female novelist), and one suspects that they've only told themselves they'd ever actually travelled there.
This movie is just plain awful.
 Let's send Tom Everett Scott off to the old College of Osculation...... July 28, 2006
JUST A REVIEWER2
Gracious, what a great job reviewer Lawrance M. Bernabo has done in "synop-sizing" this film. But noticeably, no one has mentioned performances (other than some bit or two about the famous Diane Keaton's characterization), so please let me jump in here.
Depth of performance is not this film's strong point. Keaton's work here is kind of "slide by"........just not her best. There's a noticeable tendency to act out in an over-the-top manner---though she's usually able to pull it back in before things get too messy.
Career-wise, Josh Hopkins and Scott, both the same age, share about the same number of filmed performances, with Scott holding an edge in movie productions, as opposed to TV works. These are definitely the male leads of this production, but it is Hopkins, as Peter, who becomes head and shoulders the standout. He is quite, quite good, and it has to be asked why he's not further up the scale of stardom at this point (lack of good agency representation, perhaps). And if there's a breath of fresh air in all this, it's Chris Pine's performance as a ebullient Shawn. He's a cutie, a sweetie, and he shines. Nothing keeps his character down.
Playing gay character, Adam, in this work, Scott is perhaps surprisingly at nowhere near the performance level of those performers already mentioned. His past work experience would lead one to expect otherwise, but, sadly, that is not the case. When Peter calls Adam a "Little Bitch" at one point in the film, he comes very close to describing what is my take on Scott's performance: someone whose characterization is "diva-ish"---which I believe is really over the top, as opposed to the way in which this part should be played. More, when he's not doing that, his delivery just seems flat (see Tom run, see Tom run after Spot). So, for anyone reading this who might have something to do with assisting Scott in selecting future roles, please have him refrain from those involving a gay character. I just don't see that he has it in him; his one gay interaction with another player, a kiss with Shawn, is a disaster (it shouldn't be like giving your grandmother a peck; can't you do better than to give us a lips-glued-shut kiss?). Why take on any role like this if you can't throw yourself into it?
This production, in my opinion, is not one worth the expense of adding to your DVD collection.
****
Recollections of Oz May 28, 2006
Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Charles McDougall's resume includes directing episodes on 'Sex and the City', 'Desperate Housewives', Queer as Folk', 'Big Love', 'The Office', etc. so he comes with all the credentials to make the TV film version of Meg Wolitzer's novel SURRENDER, DOROTHY a success. And for the most part he manages to keep this potentially sappy story about sudden death of a loved one and than manner in which the people in her life react afloat.
Sara (Alexa Davalos) a beautiful unmarried young woman is accompanying her best friends - gay playwright Adam (Tom Everett Scott), Adam's current squeeze Shawn (Chris Pine), and married couple Maddy (Lauren German) and Peter (Josh Hopkins) with their infant son - to a house in the Hamptons for a summer vacation. The group seems jolly until a trip to the local ice creamery by Adam and Sara) results in an auto accident which kills Sara. Meanwhile Sara's mother Natalie Swedlow (Diane Keaton) who has an active social life but intrusively calls here daughter constantly with the mutual greeting 'Surrender, Dorothy', is playing it up elsewhere: when she receives the phone call that Sara is dead she immediately comes to the Hamptons where her overbearing personality and grief create friction among Sara's friends. Slowly but surely Natalie uncovers secrets about each of them, thriving on talking about Sara as though doing so would bring her to life. Natalie's thirst for truth at any cost results in major changes among the group and it is only through the binding love of the departed Sara that they all eventually come together.
Diane Keaton is at her best in these roles that walk the thread between drama and comedy and her presence holds the story together. The screenplay has its moments for good lines, but it also has a lot of filler that becomes a bit heavy and morose making the actors obviously uncomfortable with the lines they are given. Yes, this story has been told many times - the impact of sudden death on the lives of those whose privacy is altered by disclosures - but the film moves along with a cast pace and has enough genuine entertainment to make it worth watching. Grady Harp, May 06
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