Riding the Bus with My Sister

2005

Drama

1
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 39%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 39% · 500 ratings
IMDb Rating 3.6/10 10 1396 1.4K

woman director

Plot summary

A woman spends time with her developmental disabled sister after the death of their father.

Director

Anjelica Huston Photo
Anjelica Huston

Top cast

Andie MacDowell Photo
Andie MacDowell as Rachel Simon
Richard T. Jones Photo
Richard T. Jones as Jesse
Rosie O'Donnell Photo
Rosie O'Donnell as Beth Simon
Ellora Patnaik Photo
Ellora Patnaik as Girl on Bus
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
897.61 MB
1280*714
English 2.0
NR
us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 37 min
Seeds ...
1.63 GB
1920*1072
English 2.0
NR
us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 37 min
Seeds 5

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by IonicBreezeMachine 3 / 10

A mixture of cloying sentimentality and abrasive obnoxiousness, Riding the Bus with My Sister aspirations are clouded by a misguided badly manufactured take

Beth Simon (Rosie O'Donnell) is an intellectually disabled woman who doesn't have a job and through government assistance lives on a diet of high sugar high carb foods and spends most of the day riding around on the city bus lines. After Beth's father dies, Beth's estranged sister Rachel (Andie MacDowell) takes a leave of absence from her job as a fashion photographer and stays with Beth for three months to make sure Beth is able to support herself. The two initially have friction regarding Beth's unhealthy life choices and lack of direction, but as Rachel observes Beth's daily routine she learns how integral she is viewed by many of the bus drivers and passengers.Riding the Bus with My Sister is a 2005 made-for-TV movie based upon Rachel Simon's 2002 memoir of the same name that chronicled a year of Rachel's life following her mentally challenged sister Beth around in the course of her life a major part of which included riding the buses in their Pennsylvania city home. The options to the story were eventually acquired by Hallmark and CBS where it was released as a TV movie with Rosie O'Donnell staring in and executive producing the project. Upon release the film was a success in the ratings garnering 15 million in total viewership while critical reception tended to pan the film with many lamenting the film's cloying sentimentality and central performance by O'Donnell. However well intentioned Riding the Bus with My Sister might've been, those intentions are lost in the very hackneyed and obnoxious way in which this story is told.As the film begins with Beth and Rachel's morning routines cross-cut with each other in the opening credits sequence, there's a clear sense that something has gone horribly wrong in the translation from book to film as Beth condition is presented with a level of over the top whimsy that coupled with O'Donnell's delivery (that many have compared to Pee-Wee Herman including the laugh) feels less like a respectful depiction of someone with a developmental disability and more like a grotesque caricature. While I haven't read the book, I have been made aware of several exaggerations and alterations the producers made such as exaggerating Beth's condition, changing Rachel from a college teacher to a fashion photographer, and killing off Beth and Rachel's father as an inciting incident (with him actually still being alive when the movie aired). With the way the film is made and acted you get the sense the producers homogenized this story to the point all the substance was lost and instead of engaging their audience's minds they simply aim broad shots at the heartstrings using an arsenal of broad archetypes which given it's CBS/Hallmark and it scored 15 million viewers shows you'll never go broke catering to the lowest common denominator.Riding the Bus with My Sister might have had some better aspirations at some point, but rather than actually giving us a chance to learn and understand these characters we're instead treated to a depiction of the "Magic Simpleton" trope with dialed up obnoxiousness and sentimentality that aims for heartwarming and instead becomes cloying.
Reviewed by

Reviewed by toddreeder-241-635878 3 / 10

Not a good movie.

I did not like the movie because it did not have much of an ending. And because there was no real resolution between Beth and Rachel. Rachel went back to new york and got on with her life while Beth stayed where she was and her life remained the same. It would have been a better ending if Beth and Jesse moved in with each other and lived together. And if Rachel would have done something to help her sister to have a real life. Some of the people on the bus were right in a way. Beth should have got a life. There likely something she could have done as an occupation. She needed to learn if possible when to keep quiet and not say certain things. There is a lot she needed to learn and the system was not helping her learn. She had a case worker. But no indication she was helping her get a life.

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