Sometimes, an accident can be an unhappy woman's best friend.
Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.
- Harm to children
- Addiction
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Character
Earnest, grave, contemplative and contemporary.
- earnestironic
- gravecomic
- contemplativerelentless
- contemporarynostalgic
- warmbleak
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24 profiled raters. Loved most by The Provocateurs; disliked most by The Prestige Hunters.
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Reviews on TMDB
Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.
- John Chardon TMDB · Feb 20208/10
Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto. Dolores Claiborne is directed by Taylor Hackford and adapted to screenplay by Tony Gilroy from the novel of the same name written by Stephen King. It stars Kathy Bates, Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Strathairn, John C. Riley, Christopher Plummer and Judy Parfitt. Music is scored by Danny Elfman and cinematography by Gabriel Beristain. Plot sees Leigh as Selena St. George, a big-city reporter who travels to her home town island in Maine when her mother is accused of murdering the elderly woman that she was caring for. Her estranged mother, Dolores (Bates), is also widely suspected to have killed her husband and Selena's father some 20 years earlier, even though that was ruled as an accident. As mother and daughter come together, secrets of the past merge with the harshness of the present. A terrifically well acted and well mounted drama doing justice to a great book, Dolores Claiborne thrusts family trauma to the front of an on going murder investigation. King adaptations are well known for being very hit and miss, but this is certainly one of the better ones, it sees a shift from standard horror monsters, to monsters of a diffe
Read the whole review on TMDB - talisencrwon TMDB · Sep 20169/10
This one tends to get ignored when people consider the 'classic' Stephen King film adaptations (the first 20 years), but it's very subtle, nuanced, and is basically one of King's finest and more mature works. If it was even possible for Kathy Bates to out-do her Oscar-winning work in 'Misery', she still did so, and nailed it. I'm a huge fan of John C. Reilly, Eric Bogosian (why 'Talk Radio is my favourite Oliver Stone movie and 'Under Siege 2' my favourite Steven Seagal film), David Strathairn, Christopher Plummer and especially, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the Tony Gilroy script serves them beautifully. Unfairly, I tend to joke about director Taylor HACKford, but it just may be that he's a more contemporary model of such versatile directors from the past as Norman Jewison and Robert Wise. That's fairly esteemed company--and here, he abides himself quite nicely in some of his best work.
Read the whole review on TMDB - MoHAon TMDB · Apr 201510/10
Welcome to Maine; where alcoholism, smoking, and all sorts of behavior the aforementioned are trying to cover up creep up on you like bad filling of gravy. At least, in Stephen King’s universe. True to his (excessive) words, a lot gets stirred up, not all of it gets answered, and characters get knee high in lots of details. Nothing wrong about that, except in this movie the details, and the melodrama that comes with them, tend to bog down what should be bonding of two women over the men that hurt them. What a depressingly masculine mess. I love a good pulpy environment (hello film noir, which often has a mystery element to it like this movie) but someone how the pacing was just off. I think Kathy Bates does a pretty fantastic job as the the title character. Her daughter Selena though.. I don’t know if it meant more in the book but her talks about the story in Arizona she wants to cover doesn’t really anything interesting to the mix. Maybe it’s to show what bad decisions she’s made after having no family to turn to, but it’s belaboured. We get she’s a emotional mess without it. I also don’t think Jennifer Jason Leigh is all that great in the role, but then again she mostly just sits
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Cast
- Kathy BatesDolores Claiborne
- Jennifer Jason LeighSelena St. George
- Judy ParfittVera Donovan
- Christopher PlummerJohn Mackey
- David StrathairnJoe St. George
- Eric BogosianPeter
- John C. ReillyConst. Frank Stamshaw
- Ellen MuthYoung Selena
- Bob GuntonMr. Pease
- Roy CooperMagistrate
Crew
- Taylor HackfordDirector
- Tony GilroyScreenplay
- Stephen KingNovel
- Gabriel BeristainDirector of Photography
- Danny ElfmanOriginal Music Composer
- Mark WarnerEditor
- Taylor HackfordProducer
- Charles MulvehillProducer
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