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The Greatest – sp – Almost immediately after the movie opens you realize that this is a story about the painful grieving of a family. While in this case it is about the kind of grief most people should not have to experience, it touches upon emotions that everyone has either had or knows that that they can have tomorrow. The writer and first time director Shana Feste shared with us that she probably wrote this because her father had such a loss many years ago and only spoke once to her about it. She researched the subject and her own emotions quite well. She was able to get Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon to buy into this project and bring their maturity and great acting to this film. Then Ms. Fester and her duo of women producers Lynette Howell and Beau Marie St. Clair were able to find young Carey Mulligan, before she received her Oscar nomination for An Education, to play the centerpiece of the young woman who carried within her the essence of this film. All three stars brought to the screen a very palpable realism in their three different but yet very appealing characters, each of whom drew you in as you felt their pain. A trio of three young talented actors rounded out the outstanding cast. The movie has the haunting presence of what we recall from the 1980 Oscar winning film Ordinary People which incidentally had the same Director of Photography, John Bailey. Whereas the older classic showed the disintegration of a family, this one leaves you with the possibility of a rebirth. The experience is definitely worth going through (2010)