A Little Help
Feeling her life spinning out of control, a widow (Jenna Fischer) drinks too much and gets entangled in a series of bizarre lies in order to take care of herself and her 12-year-old son (Daniel Yelsky).
1 September 1948, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
22 November 1959, Akron, Ohio, USA
15 April 1952, New York City, New York, USA
18 July 1939, Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
11 October 1937, New York City, New York, USA
29 May 1984, Rutland, Vermont, USA
18 August 1964, USA
11 October 1997, Rhinebeck, New York, USA
10 December 1973, Little Compton, Rhode Island, USA
22 May 1967, New York City, New York, USA
7 January 1993
26 June 1970, Winnetka, Illinois, USA
10 August 1933, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
21 February 1958, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
9 July 1971, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
30 December 1929, Brooklyn, New York, USA
25 September 1962, New York City, New York, USA
16 August 1946, New York City, New York, USA
26 December 1965, Los Angeles, California, USA
October 29, 2011
Though the movie can't possibly wrap up all its dramatic threads in any realistic manner, the way it abruptly leaves off is just as dissatisfying.
August 09, 2011
O'Donnell's character isn't the only relative that we and Fischer's Laura come to resent (although she at least finds opportunities to sneak away for cigarette and beer breaks).
August 05, 2011
Jenna Fischer shows off her dramatic chops but her downer film is a bit aimless.
January 14, 2013
An odd duck of a period piece dramedy, a wonderfully detailed character-study set on Long Island a year after the 9/11 attacks."
July 28, 2011
This is one of the smarter, more honest scripts to be filmed in quite some time. And Jenna Fischer gives one of the smarter, more honest - and vulnerable, and tough - performances by an actress on the big screen in an even longer stretch.
June 22, 2013
A misguided dopey little vanity project that's harmless, but inert.
July 28, 2011
It's not that Jenna Fischer is miscast in "A Little Help.'' It's that she's mis-everything else: misused, misdirected, misanthropic.
July 29, 2011
A Little Help doesn't dazzle, and you can pick at its parts, but Fischer's performance gives the movie a sense of romantic weariness that lingers. Life is a series of disasters to be weathered, no matter how cute you are.
November 01, 2011
...a well-intentioned yet misguided piece of work.
July 28, 2011
The film suffers from an uncertain tone, playing serious situations for laughs while supplying Laura with a drinking habit and a hair-trigger temper that come across as problems rather than endearing foibles.
July 28, 2011
"A Little Help" settles for familiar and modest payoffs. It's not much. Yet Fischer clearly relishes the chance to play someone who's a demurely reckless mess.
August 05, 2011
The next chapter in Laura's story might be something worth rooting for, but here's hoping she has a different writer penning her lines.
