The Room Upstairs

I am a collector of many things, among them the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. There was a time when HHofF did not secure the distribution rights to the movies. This movie is one. There is not even the slightest hint that this is a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. I am working on acquiring ALL the titles. I have all the Gold Crown Editions in a mixture of VHS & DVD formats. I have some titles in "street copy" version. What's the difference? Street copies are just the movie. The Gold Crown Editions have added special features, including a "Making of" featurette. This is a combination of behind the scenes, interview with cast members, director & producer.I gave this a 3-star rating because I thought it was only a mediocre project for HHofF. It is a love story with some quirkey characters. Other reviewers have said Sarah Jessica Parker doesn't deserve first billing in this movie. She was in it only short scenes. The female lead, Stockard Channing runs a rooming house, but this is not made obvious from the start. She is going home on a train & stops at a store & buys some items which include a plunger. When she gets to her destination, somebody is cooking dinner. Who is this somebody? An oriental female comes on the scene & is sort-of introduced. A man appears at the door - Sam Waterston. He's the guy from "I'll Fly Away" & "Law & Order", only much younger & sporting a mustache. He is interested in renting the one remaining room in the house. He sees the room & takes it, giving Leah first two months deposit in cash! She asks what he does for a living. He tells her he plays cello. In the next act, we are shown what Leah does for her "day-job", she is playing Scrabble with two adolescent boys, one of whom keeps plunging his lock blade knife into the table top & eventually, he "explodes" & starts throwing the chair & anything else around the room. As the movie prgresses, we get to know more about the characters in dialog. Linda Hunt from "The Practice" & NCIS Los Angeles is Leah's supervisor. They converse about a new person Leah needs to "reach". This is the character played by Sarah Jessica Parker. It looks like she is playing a teenager, but that is uncertain. Leah makes some success & her dress gets ripped. SJP offers to fix the dress, but instead, she destroys the dress & leaves it on her bed for Leah to find. SJP goes down to the teeter-totter & Leah makes her displeasure known. they get into a punching, on-the-ground fight, which breaks up when a police officer arrives. Then, some time passes in the story, but how much time - this viewer couldn't tell. But the boarder who was pregnant in the beginning of the movie is ready to deliver, as the boardeing house tennants are working on a holiday get-together guest list. When the holiday happens, it is New Years Eve, and not Thanksgiving or Christmas. Travis, the cello player misses the countdown, but arrives moments later. He & Leah have a tender moment in private & she falls asleep on his shoulder. He tells her he will send her a ticket for a performance on Valentine's Day. She thinks he is going to be in the audience, but he is on stage. They return home & she has set-up for him a festive dinner setting in his room. The movie ends.I agree with the other reviewers. This movie was not a waste of people & resources, just a mediocre movie. Hallmark Hall of Fame movies have several characteristics in common: length - they are timed to run in two-hour time slot with about 40 minutes for commercials. This did that. There is little or no violence. That was true in this movie also. There is little to no swearing. Again, that is true here. Finally, they have a good story. That is where this is lacking. It's a jumbled mess of stories of individual people who come together to live under one roof, with some of the female lead's students making appearances. Maybe it's good, in this case, that no mention of Hallmark Hall of Fame was made. This movie fell way short of the standards I expect from HHofF. I only knew it was a HHofF movie when I found it in a book: "The UCLA Film & Television Archives presents Hallmark Hall of Fame 50 The First Fifty Years." The date on the DVD is 2004, but it was originally broadcast on Jan 31, 1987. That explains why Sam Waterston is so much younger! It is shot well, & the cinematography is very good, I will agree with that statement.

SJP does not star in this movie!! Not sure why she's on the DVD cover. The movie stars the incomparable Stockard Channing as a landlord who falls in love with one of her tenants. Channing's performance is subtle, layered, and poignant.

I loved this movie when it first played on the Hallmark Hall of Fame one Valentine's Day. By no stretch of the imagination is Sarah Jessica Parker the star of this film, but Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston are lovely in it.

I love Stockard Channing so that is why I bought it and gave it 4 stars. The story is choppy and has too many sub plots going no where. It's worth seeing for Channing and Sam Waterston who play strangers who learn to trust each other and the love that eventually brings them together.

A good old fashioned tale. It's nice to see a plot developed around characters with a little depth, and without gratuitous sex and violence.

Loved this years ago when I saw it on Hallmark Hall Of Fame.Young Sam Waterson and Stockard Channing were great.

They have Sara Jessica Parker on the front cover of the DVD and she only appears in the movie in five scenes very briefly. So if you are looking to buy this DVD because you are a SJP fan then think twice about it. On a lighter note it was an alright movie but the ending wasn't so hot. Cheers! PhillyGirly XoXoXo

I am a huge Sarah Jessica Parker fan but this was not a good movie at all. Totally sucked. She was not in it much at all.

SJP was in this movie / 57mins, before sex & the city. Lost a hour of my life watching this.

Great film

This movie must have been very boring, because I don't remember much and I don't have it anymore. I must have thrown it out. I know my review isn't encouraging. Perhaps you would like to go with the positive reviews and buy it for yourself.