The awesomeness seemed to dissipate in the last half hour
I was so high on this film for the first hour or so. The end wasn't disastrous, but it seemed quite disappointing compared to that first hour. Stephen Holden's NY Times take comes close to mine:
As smart and observant as it is, "Lovely and Amazing" doesn't really go anywhere.
Only I didn't necessarily need it to go somewhere. An extremely well observed and acted slice of life character study can be a beautiful thing (though often depressing, as this one was) without having to lead to some dramatic conclusion. I just didn't think the last act or two was as well drawn as the earlier stuff.
Mick LaSalle of the SF Chronicle gets even closer:
Holofcener throws a bunch of issues on the table and takes time to linger over them, without worrying much about where her story's going or even if she has one. The result is a gutsy little picture and a nice slice of life...The "holding out hope" part is where things clunk a bit near the finish...
Maybe that's the problem: that Holofcener didn't have quite the courage (or her producers didn't let her) to just stick with the harrowing, disconcerting character portraits she had been drawing, as filmmakers like Mike Leigh or Neil Labute would.
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