I had some free time last Sunday morning, and Alamance Crossings Carousel Cinemas offers an pre-matinee price for movies before 2pm. They call it the Early Bird, a $5.50 ticket. I can definitely handle that. Even this chica-on-a-budget can go see movies to her heart's content and write awesome movie reviews on that cheap ticket price.

I am a sucker for movies that have a circle plot: they start and end in the same place. I love to see the process, the evolution- i.e. the drama.

The first thing you hear is Sandra Bullock's voice...that I almost didn't recognize as it dripped with Southern accents. Wow! That was a shocker; and then, I fell into believing it- completely.

I adore the Leigh Anne Touhy character; and Sandra did an amazing job making her come alive- and making me want to be her. That's exactly the kind of woman I want to be- sure, she's not perfect. But, she's strong, decisive, loving and takes initiative to the inth degree. Her ability to multi-task leaves me super-green with envy.

(Can I just say that I didn't realize that Sean Touhy was Tim McGraw? Took me a while to make that connection. Sorry about that.)

The movie was thorough- in all aspects of the story. Sure, at some points it felt long; but doesn't every drama have moments of longness that you wish would hurry up and move along? (wait, how did we start talking about my life?)

We all deal with moments when our bubbles burst- when our perspective of life is shifted so completely that we have to change- there is a decisive moment of choice: left or right. We all have moments when our opinions are challenged to expand- some of us are willing and some of us are pulled kicking and scream (and there are also the some of us that ignore as much as we can and our choice is not to offer expansion to our perspectives).

It is nice to sit back and watch someone else go through the struggle- and learn from their choices.

I also really enjoyed the gallery of real-life pictures at the end. Nice to see the real faces that took part in the story.