User reviews

A tap dancing vigilante may seem an impossible idea to turn into a comprehensible script but somehow Karen Leigh Hopkins makes it work. The opening sequence of the film makes it clear that Miss Meadows (Holmes) is no ordinary school teacher cum vigilante, with victim number one clocked very early after the title sequence. Holmes does a great job of making Miss Meadows seem the epitome of eccentricity, with, apparently, carefully created, precisely drawn and meticulously manicured manners, even at the point of the kill.

Throughout the plot are moments of blissful dialogue intertwined with pauses, telling looks, and, it has to be said, the incongruous, but it does hang together if you stick with it. There are continuity blunders in more than one scene, and occasional poor editing, but these do not stop the film from being surprisingly engrossing. The acting is rather good too, especially from James Badge Dale (the Sheriff) and Ava Kolker (Heather). There are memorable scenes like dancing to an unseen and unheard accordion in a field which make this film a little like an old fashioned fairy tale or a fable, but the message is totally adult in content, and should leave you thoughtful by the end.

A film like few others which is going to be underrated and under exposed. It is better than it will score on places like 1Mbd.

I thought this movie was underrated and I love Katie Holmes and James badge Dale and Jean smart. I thought ahead of next week's lot very cute. This is one you don't wanna let get away I like it.

Entertaining little vigilante tale with a quirky twist. The only movie I've seen with Katie Holmes that didn't make me want to stop the flick. A Good Time Waster.

This movie is a combination of "Serial Mom" (1994) and "The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag" (1992.)

This has been filmed all over Cleveland, Ohio; it makes you wonder about Cleveland: Edgewater Park, Cleveland - Miss Meadows and the Sheriff Beach Scene 3850 Pearl Rd, Cleveland - Restaurant Starkweather Ave, Cleveland - Miss Meadows home Edgewater Dr, Cleveland - opening scene Whiskey Island Dr, Cleveland - Sheriff pulls Miss Meadows car over Tremont Montessori School, Cleveland - School

The movie is a psychological thriller posing as a black comedy.

Miss Meadows (Katie Holmes) is a well-balanced individual with a mission to dispatch evil beings. Her life gets complicated when she falls in love with the local law enforcement (James Badge Dale) and they have an accordion-ly good time. Which instinct shall prevail?

I now have a new respect for substitute teachers we have a lot to learn from them. I also learned that law enforcement can be fixable and personable.

It was very strange but I enjoyed it. It was exactly what I was in the mood for. If you like the trailer, you'll probably like the movie in an odd way. If you don't like the trailer you might skip this one.

Miss Meadows (Katie Holmes) is a nice prim substitute grade school teacher on the outside but she is something more underneath the facade. She kills criminals on the side and talks to her mother (Jean Smart) on the phone. She starts dating the local sheriff which conflicts with her extra-curricular activities. The sheriff gets suspicious but asks her to marry him as soon as she tells him that she's pregnant.

Filmmaker Karen Leigh Hopkins has filled this with a lot of quirkiness but none of it is funny. It doesn't work as a black comedy. All the quirky keeps the movie from going truly dark. There is also a lack of intensity especially considering the killings. This should be either much darker or more surreal. This feels like it's a step away from being a good interesting movie.

I did not really know what to expect on my outing with Miss Meadows. The cover art is probably a bit misleading as it is more of a day in the life of Miss Meadows rather than a woman going out of her way to kill men type film.

Katie Holmes did a perfect job as Miss Meadows I think the casting was spot on. It was a delight to hear here use of "proper" English which contrasted well with the run down neighborhood in which she occupies. Katie did a great job displaying the playful and innocent Miss Meadows.

The film touches on many things including - love, optimism, being naive, mental illness, relationships developing despite mental illness.

Miss Meadows comes along as a delightful character with no-nonsense justice served. A good escapist film. The word play is akin to a Wes Andersen movie (think Grand Budapest Hotel)

So pick up your top hat, grab a picnic basket and go on a stroll with the delightful Miss Meadows.

The idea of a saccharine sweet, Mary Poppins-esque school teacher leading a double life as a gun-toting vigilante is a great starting off point for a subversive black comedy.

Unfortunately, "Miss Manners" never gets very far past this strong basic idea. It's not funny enough to work as a black comedy, not interesting or dynamic enough to work as a straight character study/drama, not weird or brave enough to work as a David Lynchian suburban fable and not exciting, action-packed, or shocking enough to work as a cult/horror/fun/late-night/midnight madness type movie. It seems to be kind of aiming for all of those targets, but ends up hitting none of them. The result, despite the promising premise, is a very bland, vanilla, and ultimately pretty uninteresting movie.

Katie Holmes is perfectly fine in the leading role and seems to pull off this kind of character very well. The problem isn't her or her character but the fact that they really don't give her very much to do or really any interesting obstacles to face.

The story unfolds very predictably and we don't get any kind of dynamic examination of this main character beyond the reveal of her very cliché and completely expected back story.

It all feels very paint-by-numbers, very black and white, and ends up feeling pretty tame. A movie like this needs to have real teeth and attitude behind it and this film really has zero of either. The main character is never put in any interesting moral predicaments or forced to make any tough choices, and that's really an essential element in a story like this one.

Like I said, I really liked the set up and concept of this movie and even the introduction of the film;s main character--but was ultimately disappointed with the bland and lackluster way they were handled.

This movie deserves so much more credit than its low IMDB rating. It's is a solid 7.5, simultaneously dark and empowering. Considering all the uninspired scripts being turned into movies these days, Miss Meadows dares to be different. Sure there are a couple of heavy-handed scenes, but pretty much about the film works well, particularly the solid acting (even the kids) and the fresh dialogue, Miss Meadows is a deliciously unique character, and Katie Holmes plays her perfectly. It's been a while since I've seen Holmes in anything, but Miss Meadows is a great reminder of how riveting Holmes can be on screen.

Miss Meadows tries to be what Promising Young Woman manages to achieve with mastery years later, but here is missing. A more captivating and less irritating (more real) character, as well as a more satisfying development of the story, are missed.

I'm happy for Katie Holmes that she got a role, that might seem one sided or one dimensional on the outside, but is actually pretty meaty on the inside. And she has fun playing that character obviously. Unfortunately the movie or rather the script itself is not so good. It can't keep up with the pace and quality of the character.

It's a weird movie nonetheless and it's very violent while innocent looking. If you don't mind that split, which actually makes the difference to other movies, you will enjoy this. It's not about being right (though you couldn't argue the values), but about how or if one should act upon those values ... Not that the movie will leave you thinking too much ... It's supposed to be entertainment after all

2 people completely different from one another end up going out, having sex one time, having a baby and...getting married? And one of them is a cop? How long did they know each other before they got married, a couple weeks???

And the movie is 90 minutes but moves so sloooooooow. Katie Holmes did a great job but there's really not a whole lot going on.

Contrary to several other reviews, I thought this hung together and was quite entertaining and well done.

My one big drawback was the tea service scene. It should have been reshoot and edited. Items kept appearing, disappearing and reappearing. It was painful to watch over 20 mistakes in a row. They must have been really short on funding.

This film wasn't what I was expecting. I thought this was going to be some off the chain Charles Bronson Death Wish stuff. For a vigilante film it didn't have enough action. The concept of this film was nice, a young, pretty, and naïve looking school teacher violently protecting the neighborhood she lives in. The writers of this film didn't use the 'looks can be deceiving' vigilante thing to the fullest. There isn't too much that would have made this film better. Miss Meadows (Katie Holmes) could have had more bad guys to confront, that alone would have brought on many more challenges and situations for the main character. I mean look at The Brave One with Jodie Foster, that's what this film should have been like. There were a couple of things in this film I did like. I liked when a double entendre is thrown at her or when someone is being sarcastic with her she would take it literally and the over the phone relationship she had with her mother. I know this film probably wasn't meant to be an action film, but it would have helped. After all, Miss Meadows is a vigilante.

The trailer for Miss Meadows is quite captivating. Why else would we watch a Katie Holmes movie?

So it was with great pleasure last night, that my husband and I got to see the full film.

Starting off with a fun little scene that highlights some Disney princess qualities, humored by some twisted dark comedy, we are soon drawn into the secret little world of Miss Meadows, a primary school substitute teacher who moonlights as a small town vigilante happy to clean up the streets and look pretty doing it!

There is enough decent scenes to keep you watching, although while I felt myself drifting off half way through, my husband was wide eyed and hooked. Personally, I thought it would make an incredible short film.

With its description you would imagine some great action and violence, almost like the female version of the Equalizer, but instead and quite obviously in the hands of a lady director, we get a toned down version with more dark humor on kills and a very artsy looking film with plenty of drama.

Miss Meadows is not perfect by any means, but it is a fun film to watch and definitely worth a go...

Enjoy!

The movie is literally weird, almost from all of its aspects. The basic concept looks like it tries to combine Cynthis Rothrock movie characters with Mary Poppins and a little bit of Norman Bates, yet the story ends just as just another under developed effort at dark comedy. This being so because the story develops weirdly in the movie that it reveals very less important detail but shows so many that those showed may really deceive the audience in the wrong way. The mood of the movie is nicely well kept throughout. But seeing Katie Holmes all dressed up like a giant baby girl holding a small gun quickly bores me from early on. The acting work in overall is also not a good one. With Katie Holmes' face showing clear signs of aging, her role here feels very ironic indeed. And with only her as the major name in this movie, the acting work sure doesn't get the performance boost it definitely needs.

I read a couple of negative reviews and I can only conclude that this is one of those times when people have simply different expectations (high or just different) and they are overall too surprised to enjoy the movie as it is. Some say Holmes plays too young character for her actual age, some say the film isn't funny enough, when it should be a dark comedy and some complain the story is too predictable.

Main complaint however is that the storyline fails to develop enough to seem believable, and simply emerges to, quote, off-puttingly bizarre (review on holywoodreporter). I must disagree. This movie would not seem annoyingly odd, if you simply don't watch it with certain expectations, and this actually counts for almost any movie. Forget for a minute you're watching Tom Cruise's ex wife, forget that she's also a co-producer, and just let yourself enjoy the movie. Who says films should be "believable"?! You may treat this movie as a fairy tale and you'll get overwhelmingly fascinated by the tap-dancing, the hairstyle and the costume design in it.

You also may be surprised you actually like Holmes' acting. She plays a woman living in a fantasy world, who starts slowly meeting the reality - but who says she should meet the reality all the way through? She abandons her fairy-tale world for a while, just to fix the things that are too odd, but what's nicely surprising is she doesn't abandon it completely. I would say she plays some sort of an everyday super hero, because she fearlessly helps and saves people in need, but she's is depicted without the clichés for a superhero character, and the film is weird enough, in a nice way, to make us think of this without putting it too obvious.

Another reason to watch this movie is Brenda Abbandandolo's costume design. Miss Meadows' clothes, combined with her hairstyles and maybe the makeup, are the things that make this movie so enjoyable. For any fashion lover, this is a reason alone to watch it. Scenography is also nice, but Katie Holmes in a elegant high waist skirt wearing white gloves and tap-dancing shoes, with cute hair strands and big eyes, this is something completely overwhelmingly cute and sure a reason to love at least a little the film. Her well-illustrated character will make you like the rest of the cast's look - Sheriff's intentionally balding hair, bad guy's evil looking face and his character's overall look - the hair and the dog on a leash.

At last, I suggest if you suspect that you have developed any kind of high expectations for this film, simply skip it. Watch it only without prejudice, and you will enjoy Katie Holmes acting, and Miss Meadows' clothing and hairstyles.

I remember seeing the trailer for this movie and thinking that it would be pretty good. Now having seen it I'm left thinking how much better it could have been. In trailer form this seemed like a role tailor-made for Katie Holmes (who also executive produces), but as time went on the magic wore off and she seemed too mature to be playing a person who is possibly just passing as someone much younger than she appears. For this kind of story to work, you have to believe in the main character and the situations she is put in and for me the believability wore off rather quickly. I never believed that Katie Holmes was as nice as her character was supposed to be and it always seemed like she was putting on a show rather than being a genuine person. It also didn't help that her acting (and the rest of the cast) wasn't great either. It had a great opening scene (which was in the trailer) but it was all downhill from there. The characters and story didn't go to any unexpected or interesting places either. Everything in the story was fairly predictable, and it also never manages to have a consistent tone or attitude toward its characters. Still, for what little vigilante justice was doled out by the titular Miss Meadows, it wasn't too bad in that regard. This was a movie that would have worked better in short form than the 88 minutes which already felt like it was stretching the concept thin. If you're a die-hard Katie Holmes fan (what few of you there may be), then this might be worth a rental. For everyone else, if you've seen the trailer, you've already seen the best parts. Just skip it.

I've always liked what little of Katie Holmes' work I've seen. It seemed to me that she had an interesting quality that most critics either missed or ignored. Miss Meadows is proof that the lady is a serious actress of real depth and nuance. The eponymous heroine is a brilliant creation brought to life, and then some, by Holmes' performance. I can't stress this enough. This is a serious piece of work by the actress and in a better film might have led to all kinds of accolades. Here she's let down by the TV movie sensibilities of the script and of the casting. In some ways this is a brave movie, venturing into territory more frequently occupied by the French. Here though, the filmmakers don't seem to have understood the power of their creation and have opted for the safety of the known, the cliché. The supporting cast is similarly compromised. Holmes needed to have been surrounded by top class talent, capable of elevating their characters beyond the written page. It didn't happen and the moment has passed. One of the best, most complete female characters that American cinema has produced has been consigned to the scrap heap and Jennifer Jason Leigh's famous quote seems as true today as it was twenty years ago.