The film is divided into two parts. In the first part Emily has a great relationship with a swing. A group of friends have a reunion at a country home which Emily invites them to. Then Emily has a bad relationship with a swing and the group becomes isolated due to the earthquake that happened at the same time. They examine their lives and ignore the gorilla in the living room, i.e. the reason why Emily had a bad relationship with the rope of the swing.

The dialogue bored me as did the soundtrack and the lame narration at the beginning of the film. If anything, it was funny to watch good actors struggle with a lousy role and lines. Worthy of a pass. The flashback scene was stupid. They could have done a far better job.

Parental Guide: F-bomb, sex, brief nudity (Jennifer Daly?),off screen rape.

Several estranged friends are invited to spend a time out of town by their friend Emily. Only she kills herself. Not being able to leave the place for a few days they try to understand what happened and clear up things among each other.4 The idea isn't all that bad, but the way it was done and turned out does make this movie below average.

One major problem was the writing. Some dialogues were just corny and unrealistic. The ending was a fail because it didn't unite all characters but only concerned a few of them. It was also a bit pathetic how the movie was making Emily to be such a saint. References to her, the reason she committed suicide was all just too much.

A problem is a bit of a genre inconsistency. While it is common to have some humor in a drama, I felt that some (not many, but still) scenes were way too comedic for this kind of a story.

Other things are absolutely off and pointless. I don't want to use any spoilers, so I will just say that the dog story was horrible. There was no reason for it, it just took away my ability to sympathize with characters, the way it turned out was unrealistic and in a way insulting.

Another problem is some of the acting. Mainly the problem was the girl that played Vanilla. I don't see her listed in the cast and I can see why, because it was such an embarrassing performance. The character is significant, but her portrayal of Vanilla ruins it. She plays her way too stupid, doesn't seem like a 23year old, more like someone who is 5. The voice she makes is horrific.

But most actors did a good job. Some seemed to be bad simply because they had bad lines to work with. An example for this would be Molly Ringwald who still managed to make the interaction with her on screen husband impressive. Moon Zappa was very good as well. I looked through the character list and noticed that the movie as the end of most of the careers, which is sad in a way because many had great talent.

**SPOILERS** Not much of a plot here but lots of talking and emoting especially from Molly Ringwald as the cheated on wife Penelope in this utterly confusing soap opera about some dozen, give or take a few, former high-school classmates taking part in a reunion as well as chilling out in a cabin in the country.

Even though this is all supposed to take place ten years, as shown in a number of flashbacks, after the event that brought them all together happened the people don't look as if they aged a day. As things soon turn out the guest of honor Emily, Christina Applegate, who organized this reunion is not only the last person to show up but commits suicide, by hanging herself, before the night is over! Things get even worse when the people at the party try to get Emily's body to the local hospital morgue when a sudden earthquake hits the area. This has poor Emily left covered up in a barn decomposing in the summer heat as the damaged roads leading to the local hospital are being repaired!

While all this is going on all the young people at the party are either getting drunk high on pot or just reminiscing about the past and how it effected them in regards to their association with the late Emily. As we soon learn Emily was the glue-or giving tree-that kept the group together all these years even though she had almost nothing to do with them during all that time!

We even had a ridicules sub-plot when a number of the drunken party goers kid, or dog, napped a seeing eye dog and held the pouch hostage for pot money. This brainless act on their part had the poor and confused mutt, by being left out in the heat all day, die on them! As things luckily turned out the owner of the dog, a golden retriever, Mr. Forrester,Paul Gleason,later came to the rescue of one of the party-goers when she Sara, Leslie Horan, was about to give birth. We never get to know who's Sara's baby's father is but then this guy James, Johnathon Scheach, who's supposed to work at the local hardware store pops up out of nowhere who then chivalrously takes responsibility for Sara and her new born child even though he's a total stranger to both of them!

Even though get get a number of glimpse's, in some dozen flashbacks, of what happened to Emily that made her take her own life your not really that surprised when you finally get to see the whole picture. It was that anticipation of Emily's dark and troubled past pulse the annoying and almost non-stop music soundtrack in the movie that kept me both awake, how could I doze off with that music pounding into my head, and interested in taking in the entire film even though I should have known better.