Dir. Mike Binder, US/Germany/UK, 2005, 117 min
Cast: Joan Allen, Kevin Costner, Evan Rachel Wood
Review by Carol Allen
This film has inexplicably been hanging around for a long time waiting for UK release - inexplicably because it's a good, adult drama, which is funny, perceptive and very well written. Actor and former stand up comedian Binder, who wrote the screenplay as well as directing, is not yet well known in the UK, but he shows the promise here of becoming a major talent.
Allen plays Terry, a suburban mother of four daughters, whose husband has mysteriously disappeared. Convinced he has gone off with another woman, she has become angry, embittered and has taken to the bottle semi big time. Binder wrote the role with Allen in mind. She is a first class actress and a beautiful older woman, and she is both funny and tart in her anger but engaging in her predicament, so our laughter is appreciative and sympathetic. It's a very good role and she gets everything out of it. Costner plays her next door neighbour, a laid back, former sports star turned radio DJ, who's always secretly fancied her and who becomes her drinking buddy. Until, that is, she decides to give him a whirl as her lover in a delightfully funny and blunt approach and they begin a bumpy affair. It's the best performance Costner has given for ages. He makes no secret of his receding hairline and now less-than-perfect body, and the often acerbic relationship that is their middle-aged love affair is very convincing. There are none of those phoney romantic comedy obstacles that writers usually put in to keep the plot going, everything comes out of the characters.
Terry's four daughters are mildly irritating at first in their very American teenage self obsessions, but they do eventually get a chance to differentiate themselves and show more of who they are. Evan Rachel Wood, who usually seems to be cast as sexually precocious teenagers, is impressive in a different sort of role as the bright but unworldly youngest daughter Popeye, while Binder himself contributes a good cameo as Costner's sleazy but rather sad producer at the radio station. My only criticism of the writing is Popeye's somewhat “on the nose” voiceover at the end, giving us the moral of this tale. It's a bit obvious and unnecessary, but it's a small quibble about what is otherwise a delightfully entertaining, grown-up movie with its own idiosyncratic voice. |
