Empire Falls (DVD, 2005, 2-Disc Set)

Miles Roby (Ed Harris) is a rather timid restaurant manager in Empire Falls, Maine. The restaurant is owned by the wealthiest woman in town (Joanne Woodward) who is heavily into power and control.

Miles is trying his hardest to get his life in order while also dealing with his ne'er do well father (a wonderfully scruffy Paul Newman) and his obnoxious ex-wife (Helen Hunt) who left Miles for an equally obnoxious gym owner (Dennis Farina).

He's dedicated to his teen daughter Tick (Danielle Panabaker) who is trying to untangle from a controlling, obnoxious boyfriend Zack (Trevor Morgan). Zack's father is the controlling, obnoxious cop Jimmy Minty (William Fichtner) who is set to make Miles Roby's life uncomfortable. In the meantime, Tick befriends John, a sadly disturbed classmate (Lou Taylor Pucci) who is harassed constantly by Zack.

Do we see a trend here about Miles and Tick's need to free themselves of controlling, obnoxious people?

Miles' ex-mother-in-law Bea (Estelle Parsons) and long-time waitress Charlene (Theresa Russell) are his biggest supporters while his brother David (Aidan Quinn) tries to support him but also has his own issues to work around.

Throughout the story, Miles' deceased mother (Robin Wright Penn) and her paramour (Philip Seymour Hoffman) appear in flashbacks that fill in details of Miles' life and the history of Empire Falls.

PLEASE NOTE: This is a two-DVD set.

After reading, (and reviewing) the book, I rushed to Blockbuster to check out the HBO mini series..They only had the second part. Got it for a decent price on EBAY, and after watching, was glad I did. However, If I hadn't read the book, I would have missed out on SO much. I would have thought that since it was a series, they could have gone into so much more depth, to follow the book. On the positive side, the casting of the characters was pretty good. I can see Ed Harris as Miles, and Helen Hunt as the ex..I will sell the DVD on Ebay at some point in the future, so watch for it. Meanwhile READ THE BOOK FIRST!! You will be glad you did..Think of it as research?

Good quality and fast service. Their website has alot more products that I would happily purchase from them based on the service I got. I am going to bookmark the them.

Good product, and I just like sitting in my home and taking my time in viewing what I want. The quality was good, and it arrived in a reasonble amount of time. So I'm well satisfied. Thanks!

This ia an excellent movie, it keeps you wondering until the end. It has such good characters too.I decided to but it because I had tried watching it on HBO but could never catch the whole thing, it is in 2 parts. But it is a movie that I will watch again and maybe again.

Paul Newman. Paul Newman. Paul Newman. He is still a great Actor in his 80s. He was an actor that made one believe he was actually the character he was portraying. I like his work...he did a great job in every film he made. He will truly be missed. Anyone considering buying this movie, will thoroughly enjoy watching this film. The cast works very well together.

This was an excellent purchase. Excellent excellent excellent excellent excellent excellent excellent excellent

Richard Russo is an excellent author and this set of dvds is an amazing depiction of his book. Definately worth owning.

My husband saw this on cable and had to have it. It is a great show alot of good stuff in it. If you like a good drama with some suspense then this is the one for you.

I've always liked the type of movies Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward have done over the years, Ed Harris and Helen Hunt have also done many good films and are very good in this film,I like these type of story lines about small town America.Wish there was more movies like these.

The 2 Disc DVD "Empire Falls" was an enjoyable movie. The cast was excellent with Ed Harris, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. The characters set in a New England town brought human drama to the movie screen.

There was laughter, sadness, surprise, jealousy, heartbreak, control, love, hate, misunderstandings, defeat and triumph...a whole gamut of human emotion all rolled into a wonderful few hours of entertainment.

I was so glad to find this DVD. A touching, sad and funny film of interesting and tragic characters in a small New England town. Great acting, great story!

this movie was just as good as the book.... the main reason i bought this dvd is because i was there in the town that they used as empire falls... the movie was shot on location in a small town in maine called skowhegan and the summer that they shot this movie i lived there and got to see all the stars and behind the scene stuff so i was really looking foward to the movie and since i had seen the behind the scenes stuff i decided to read the book and i wasnt disapointed at all loved the book... when the movie came out i was so excited to see it and i wasnt disapointed then eitheri personally loved the fact that i got to see the making of then the final product.... anyway i loved the story line and was so heartbroken during the shooting scene in the school... but i loved how even though this movie is about a fake town in maine that the ideas of the characters fit alot of the families that live in maine and the movie even though it is also fake seemed to be really real when it came to how the actors acted and how they really seemed to be full blooded maine residents i reccommend this book and dvd to anyone who likes that kind of hallmark/maybe it could be on lifetime type storylines hbo did a wonderful job making this movie and i feel its one of my favorites

I read and loved the book so I rented this HBO special and watched it with my Mom and sister who have also both read the book. It keeps exactly to the book and all the actors are wonderful.