Even before the ludicrously contrived ending, this was a pallid, flaccid effort, but when the ending is taken into account you then have one of the worst mainstream movies ever. Binder's character dating the younger character? Yeah, right, sure, uh huh, I'm buyin' that, righto.
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Actually mistereight8888 is more right than wrong about this movie. If you think about it...the movie makes little sense. Why was Terry so ready to believe her husband ran off with another woman? Given her predilection to total bitchiness, I wouldn't have blamed the husband if he did leave her.
Terry then proceeds to descend into depression, drinking and abject bitchiness. And Denny was attracted to her, why? We're to believe her morose state of mind is attractive to Denny? If so, Denny has more issues than Terry.
She berates Denny at every turn, she's a control freak with her girls, she badmouths her husband to her girls without knowing what really happened to him, and all the time she's drifting in and out of alcoholic stupors.
So in next to final scene we see Terry a bit bewildered. Her husband dying in an accident has never occurred to her. You'd think all of the avenues of her husband's disappearance would have been explored by her or the police...but not in this movie.
So in the end she's contrite and realizes how despicable her behavior was toward all who cared about her...and we're supposed to feel sorry for her. Bah!
Oh my God. What the HELL were you watching while "watching" this movie? It was explained that she was only "bitchy" after the disappearance of her husband and that the family was pretty tight knit.
shareThat wasn't explained at all- for instance, why does Hadley hate her mother so much? She hides her boyfriend for 3 years, that's not exactly tight knit.
shareThis movie made total sense to me. I believe it especially makes sense if you have gone through a divorce, as it seems Terry believes she will be doing, after probably at least 25 years of marriage and you do it with a house full of teenagers. All of that will cause most women to break down and show the worst side of themselves with those they love and trust.
shareI have to agree the polt of this movie was not well thought out. If someone disappears all avenues are investigated before just assuming. Since he really was dead, I assuming there was no note or anything left. Why was she so quick to assume that he left without investigating. Since he had a secretary I am assuming there was a business and money involve, no one wanted to sure that he really had run away.
Maybe I am missing some part of the movie that would give all this info.
can you type assuming one more time? I'm assuming you can. I'm assuming you just learned this word.
I was more annoyed by each tense scene ending with awkward, creepy, unrealistic-as-all-get-out-and-goes-on-for-far-too-long laughter. By the time you get to the scene where the guy crashes through a window - and he laughs for ages with his creepy ass smile, and everybody else shakes their heads like, "oh you silly helmet-wearing kid you," it's just unbearable.
shareWell written, LionHearted. This movie is so bad, it is just unbearable to watch more than once. Mike Binder fancies himself as a Ladies Man. Ha. I don't think so, even in the movies....
As far as the wife/mother, I found her toxic and unstable, too skinny and neurotic, and very un-loving as a mother. But they chose the perfect actress to portray her as such.
Even this movie cannot make alcoholic stupors sexy. But they tried...
Excellent post, Emmy-you took the words right outta my mouth-must have been while u were kissing me!
shareYou poor baby.
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It isn't a matter of getting it or not; the movie is quite easy to follow.
But there are a few plot holes one could drive a truck through, namely the disappearance of the husband. Did no one think to check his bank account and credit cards etc? This makes no sense and, thus, makes the ending too contrived to be believeable.
Also, the movie shifts in tone so often that it is impossible to feel much sympathy for any of the characters. And it's no wonder: what with all the contrivance, everyone knows they're standing on quicksand.
I like Joan Allen, but she was miscast in this film. Far too intelligent an actress to be able to make us think she'd fall for a shlub played by Costner.
But there are a few plot holes one could drive a truck through, namely the disappearance of the husband.
If you've ever seen Adaptation, Brian Cox as screenwriting teacher Robert McKee tells Nic Cage's Charlie Kaufman, Don't you dare bring in a deus ex machina (whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object).
Which is exactly what this movie does. It is the worst kind of writing. I actually liked the movie up until the point where the husband's body is found. There are only like at least 100 things that, in any kind of reality, would have come up within the end of one week if he had simply vanished: He had no family of his own—no parents, brothers, sisters, etc—no friends, no employer/employees who'd be looking for him? OMG, it's too obvious and irritating to go into. I hate this movie for what this stupid, annoying, lazy screenwriter did.
Yes, contrived, in every sense of the word. Mike Binder is a hack.
He had no family of his own—no parents, brothers, sisters, etc—no friends, no employer/employees who'd be looking for him? OMG, it's too obvious and irritating to go into. I hate this movie for what this stupid, annoying, lazy screenwriter did.
Yet another watcher who doesn't get deus ex machina. This is not deus ex machina.
What we have here is failure to communicate!share
Well don't explain it or anything. Just criticize people for using it differently than you.
shareFrom Roger Ebert's review:
It is inevitable that Denny and Terry will become lovers. The girls like him. He is lonely, and Terry's house feels more like home than his own, where the living room is furnished primarily by boxes of baseballs. It is also true, given the current state of drunk driving laws, that alcoholics are wise to choose lovers within walking distance. So the movie proceeds with wit, intelligence and a certain horrifying fascination. Sometimes Terry picks up the phone to call the creep in Sweden, but decides not to give him the satisfaction.
And then comes an unexpected development. Because "The Upside of Anger" opened a week earlier in New York than here, I am aware of the despair about this development from A.O. Scott in the New York Times (the ending "is an utter catastrophe") and Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal (the ending is "a cheat").
They are mistaken. Life can contain catastrophe, and life can cheat. The ending is the making of the movie, its transcendence, its way of casting everything in a new and ironic light, causing us to reevaluate what went before, and to regard the future with horror and pity. Without the ending, "The Upside of Anger" is a wonderfully made comedy of domestic manners. With it, the movie becomes larger and deeper. When life plays a joke on you, it can have a really rotten sense of humor.
What we got here is... failure to communicate! share
No, I want you to explain it. Not some dead guy.
Anyone can cut and paste someone else's words. Be a grown up and explain it yourself.
Or......be quiet.
(PS- absolutely pathetic that you have IMDB notifications set up. Only virgins do that.)
What difference does it make who explains it to you?
What we got here is... failure to communicate! share
The difference was he wasn't using it incorrectly and all you did was just regurgitate someone else's words hoping that would be the end of it. Unfortunately for you my g/f is out of town this weekend and I am bored.
a person or thing (as in fiction or drama) that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty to an apparently insoluble difficulty
The solving of a mystery, especially when the solution is rather obvious, is not DEM.
What we got here is... failure to communicate! share
You've never heard of a husband running off with another woman? The first thing she did was freeze his accounts and cancel his ccards. The ending is not contrived, it is the point of the film and was obviously planned from the start. Costner is a rich ex pro baseball player and very charming in his way. They were both people in low points and the attraction was easy to understand.
What we have here is failure to communicate!share
Yeah.
It's terrible and was a waste of $1.75 when I saw it years ago.
It's so bad, it's badness lingers over years.
I actually like this movie, but the twist really annoys me. Not the twist itself, as much as the way it was done. I mean, he had other family, and one throw away line in the movie explained that the brother had been unable to reach him. And that's it...? His brother wasn't worried? Was his brother his only family? And what about friends, coworkers, his boss (I know he was about to be laid off, but still.) Since he was having an affair, wouldn't his girlfriend want to know where he went? And I'm pretty sure when people quit using their credit card and/or no longer withdraw money from their account, the bank sends a notice of some kind.
And at the end, the cops definitely would have suspected the wife (and/or Denny) of murdering him. No question. Since the movie ended with the funeral, the movie avoided the necessity of that plot, but still.
I get that the movie clearly didn't want to be a missing person and/or murder mystery in any way. It wanted to focus on the relationship between Terry and her daughters, and Denny (which I think it does pretty well). And the ending was supposed to show how her anger had been pointless, which perhaps implies that all anger is pointless, yadda ya. But it could have been done better. More hints could have been laced throughout without disrupting the flow and tone of the movie.
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Contrived??? It was the point of the entire film. The whole movie was made to lead up to that ending. It wasn't like it was suddenly tacked on. The point of the film was the ending.
What we have here is failure to communicate!share