Circle of Friends

Pat O'Connor does a fantastic job of bring this Maeve Binchy novel to life on the big screen, intorudcing us to Minnie Driver in the process. Straight forward chick flick as one would expect from Binchy source material follows the early life of three childhood friends in to early adult hood and their problems and concerns as such. Circle of Friends manages to raise above the standard fare simply from the strong performances of Drive, Chris O'Donnell, Alan Cumming (who manages slime ball better than anybody!) and Colin Firth. My largest complaint is with the character Saffron Burrows plays. As one of the main protagonists her role as Nan is nowhere explored properly and while in Binchy's novel you can be sypathetic to her motivations no such clemency is given in the film and you end up despising her. Still, Burrows works well with the role she has and is great to watch as always. I feel I should also point out should you have the chance to see Minnie Driver perform her music in your town under no circumstances miss it. She has a spledid voice and some quickly growing song writing skills making her a fine cut above the standard celebrity touring acts.....check out her CD...you won't regret it!