Surprisingly, this new film form actress/director Diane Keaton (Annie Hall), and writer Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle) got off to a strong start.

Meg Ryan plays one of three sisters who finds her life turned upside down when she must take care of her sick father (brilliantly played by Walter Matthau). Siblings Lisa Kudrow (Friends) and Keaton decide to leave most of the emotional load to do gooder Ryan.

So far, Hanging Up has been universally panned by critics. It's been called everything from dishonest to charmless. Although this isnÕt a great film, it does feature winning performances form Ryan and Matthau. It's also one of the over-rated Ephron's strongest writing efforts, at least for the first half of the film. It's a sometimes brooding, harsh and bittersweet look at the tangled complexities of family.

Hanging Up really falters when the story deals with the sisters themselves. This is where the story gets really pretentious. Quite frankly, I found Keaton and Kudrow quite irrelevant and unnecessary--neither come across as very effective. As far as I can gather, the sister element is only there to create dramatic tension--tension that seems all too fake. There is also a dumb subplot in which Ryan must Care for Kudrow's sick dog strictly for comic relief.

There are moments in Hanging Up that are very real, unfortunately this is a film that degenerates into your average Ephron picture. Instead of keeping things real, Ephron takes the easy way out and wraps everything up in a neat little bow in the last five minutes.