Product Details

• Actors: Diane Keaton, Mandy Moore, Gabriel Macht, Tom Everett Scott, Lauren Graham
• Directors: Michael Lehmann
• Writers: Jessie Nelson, Karen Leigh Hopkins
• Producers: Paul Brooks, Jessie Nelson
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: May 8, 2007
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (155 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000OCZA04
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,864 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Because I Said So (Widescreen Edition)" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In Because I Said So, Diane Keaton outdoes any pushy parent trying to marry off their children. On the eve of her 60th birthday, Daphne (Keaton) decides that she will find a suitable suitor for her youngest daughter Milly (Mandy Moore). Never mind that Moore was barely into her 20's when she shot the film and easily could pass as a high-school senior. The film asks us to believe that an otherwise smart, loving mother would push marriage on a young woman who obviously wasn't ready for that kind of commitment. The romantic comedy has a cute premise that grows old fast: In order to root for Daphne's almost manic desire to see Milly walk down the aisle, the audience has to believe she's undergoing some kind of trauma, or at least dying of an incurable disease. But because she is such an overbearing busybody whose best interests for her daughter have little to do with reality, viewers just see an obnoxious, meddling mother trying to micromanage her child's life. That we don't want to strangle Daphne is a credit to Keaton's acting skills, which manage to shine through, even in the most over-the-top scenes. Lauren Graham and the always adorable Piper Perabo play Milly's older, married sisters. Had the film revolved around the three sisters' lives--sans mom--Because I Said So would have been a much more interesting picture. --Jae-Ha Kim

Product Description

Academy Award-winning actress Diane Keaton stars with Mandy Moore, Lauren Graham and Piper Perabo in this heartwarming comedy about mothers, daughters and cutting the apron strings. When it comes to her three free-spirited daughters, Daphne (Keaton) is just your normal overprotective, overbearing, over-the-top mother. Worried that her youngest daughter, Millie (Moore), will end up alone, Daphne meddles in her daughter's love life until she ends up doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons...and all in the name of motherly love.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Very cute girlie movie....exactly as you would expect! August 29, 2007

By MLRapp

Format:DVD

I waited untily my husband was away before I watched this movie, since I think this one is strictly for the ladies. It was a very cute "chick flick" that I found completely relatable and think it will be adored by girls/women with close relationships with their sisters and/or mothers. This is one product that is exactly as advertised...a sweet movie to cuddle up on the couch with - alone or with the ladies in your life...friends, sisters, mothers, daughters, etc.

The acting wasn't anything to write home about, but I thought Mandy Moore was quite natural. I was a little disappointed in Diane Keaton's performance, since I have seen her act on a much higher caliber in other films, although she definitely reminded me of a few overbearing mothers I know (fortunately not my own), which made me laugh a lot!

All in all, I would recommend it if you're in the mood for a sweet, cute movie. If you're interested in this genre, but want to be really touched or find a film that truly delivers, I HIGHLY recommend the following: The Holiday; The Family Stone; Prime; Love, Actually; Serendipity; Sweet Home Alabama; Imagine Me & You; Chasing Liberty; Failure to Launch; The American President and Catch & Release.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A cute, funny movie!! What in the world do people expect from a romantic comedy? July 15, 2007

By Kharabella

Format:DVD

I was looking for a Sunday afternoon movie that would make me smile. I found it.

My disclaimer is this: I do not expect chic flicks/romantics comedies to be cohesive art films, to have memorable to stunning dialogue, or even a lot of ingenuity. I do not expect them to be realistic in the romance area. I only expect them to make me smile, to make me feel good, and to have some emotional strain that a viewer can relate to.

BECAUSE I SAID SO did that for me. It made me laugh and smile, and even had me pointing my finger at the characters for "misbehaving." If you like romantic comedies, if you really enjoy a feel good movie, and can let go of any notion that it is supposed to be "realistic" or "artsy," I think you can enjoy this film. No it isn't an Oscar winner. But I miss most of those. They don't tend to make me feel like smiling and singing on a Sunday afternoon.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Water torture May 28, 2007

By Samuel McKewon

Format:DVD

"Because I Said So" inhabits a level of the underworld where the neurotic run wild, calm is a four-letter word and one character is more or less identified as "the sister who set the family record for orgasms." It actually sickened me a little. It couldn't be any worse if each DVD came laced with anthrax.

Ostensibly this is a romantic comedy - though it is the opposite of romantic and funny like a shiv to the belly - about a mother and her three daughters, the youngest of which has either rotten taste in men, or rotten luck. The mother is Diane Keaton, while the youngest daughter is Mandy Moore. It should tell you something that Moore is the best thing about the movie.

Building off her mother-as-a-dictator performance in "The Family Stone" Keaton is Daphne, professional loon. She seems to be a baker; she lives in a million-dollar townhouse, so she must traffic angel dust, too. At any rate, she's the kind of mother who, at some point, talks simply for the sensation of mouthing words, dresses like Julie Andrews met Cruella DeVille, cries in proverbial hiccups, psychosomatically loses her voice, and eventually breaks out into song with her three daughters, who occasionally perform doo-wop numbers in front of small audiences of friends, husbands, and rotten men.

Forty years ago, women like this were either put on valium, or put away.

Daphne is borderline incoherent, a manipulator, and such an unhinged, meddling jack lope that she signs her daughter up for an online dating service, then screens the potential suitors. Unbeknowst to Millie (Moore), Daphne has set her up with an architect (Tom Everett Scott) who might be the blandest creep ever committed to celluloid. There's no reason to like him, and he's not interesting enough to hate.

Vying for Millie's affections is a musician (Gabriel Macht). He's also a single father. Occasionally, he moonlights as a saint, teaching kids and idiots to play the guitar. Of course, Millie, a caterer who moonlights as a saint teaching just plain idiots how to cook, sleeps around on the musician for sake of dramatic tension.

Other than be a showcase for Keaton roaring id, it's hard to figure out what "Because I Said So" wanted to do. It apologizes for any number of Millie and Daphne's morally questionable behaviors by chalking up to them being women in love, or heat, as if this somehow makes their choices look better. Directed by Michael Lehman (a long way from "Heathers" or even "Soapdish") it revels in frank, predictable chats about sex. Eventually, the daughters conclude that mom's meddling traces back to her need to get screwed; she's two éclairs short of a dozen because she hasn't been properly stuck in thirty years.

It trades in a bunch of other irritations, too. The musician's kid seems to be autistic; he's constantly screaming or running around like he's been sprung from the bull pit in Pamplona. The song numbers are so obviously lip-synched that you're not even sure what to imagine, nor is it immediately clear what song Daphne and her daughters are even trying to sing.