Last Thursday, I was originally going to see ‘The Simpsons’ but for various reasons that fell through. Instead, I decided to go and see a film at the currently running ‘Melbourne International Film Festival’ – and that film happened to be ‘Grace Is Gone’, a film starring John Cusack, and written/directed by James C. Strouse that was highly successful at Sundance and is due to get full release later this year.
The plotline is pretty simple – Cusack plays Stanley Phillips a store manager with two daughters (who used to be in the army) whose wife is serving in Iraq. One day the military comes to his house to deliver the news that his wife (who’s never seen during the film) has been killed. Totally shattered by the news, he prepares to tell his daughters of the news but isn’t capable of doing so. He then makes a sudden decision to take them to a fun park called ‘Enchanted Gardens’, something his youngest daughter has always wanted to do and they’re off on that tried and trusted cliché of American independent films, the road trip. But the truth is going to have come out sometime, or will it?
I had mixed feelings about this movie – I found it clichéd at times, insightful at others. Sometimes it was obvious, while at others it was admiringly subtle.
Jeffrey Wells gave this film an almost unqualified rave when he saw it at Sundace earlier this year and while he does make some valid points, I’m certainly not as positive about it. He notes that while clearly giving hints that it’s negative towards the Bush regime, is hardly a tirade against America’s involvement in Iraq. But the film’s attitudes are most clearly displayed with regards to Phillips’s characterization (voted for Bush and supporter of America’s involvement in Iraq) as compared to that of his brother (strongly anti-war and doesn’t vote for any political party) reveals the filmmaker’s attitudes quite clearly. Phillips is portrayed as uptight, regimented and repressed, naïve, poor communicator with his children. In contrast his brother who appears about a third in the film is far more charismatic, sensible, laid-back and significantly, Phillips’s children are far more at ease interacting with him. You’re not going to provide much insight if you’re going to offer such obvious stereotyping (which Cusack’s performance encourages, especially early on).
While the makers of this film clearly treat Phillips’s character sympathetically it’s in a patronizing context that borders on caricature; that’s showcased from the opening scene where he goes to a support group meeting for spouses who’re in Iraq (he’s the only male there). Several of the women are shown being openly discussing the final night of sexual intimacy they had with their husbands while Phillips is there looking like he’d rather be anywhere else; of course when it comes up to his time to talk he’s totally uncomfortable going into such detail.
Also, even within the confines of the film’s plot I couldn’t get a grip on Phillips’s character and inner motivations, because the film wasn’t sure either. At times it was portraying his desire to have his daughters have their wishes come true and have a great adventure before they heard the shattering news as an understandable and compassionate move instead of the standard telling them straight away. On the other hand, it was portraying him as someone completely unable to handle the news of his wife’s death and was retreating into delusion.
For mine, I think they should’ve stuck with the first perspective as within the confines of the film it made a lot of inherent logic in it. The second perspective was much harder to take; there’s a particularly irritating plot device where Phillips, desperately pretending that his wife is still alive, calls home to the answering machine to hear her voice and then ‘talks’ to her. It doesn’t work as it throws the film off-kilter and such dialogue would’ve worked better if it was going on inside Phillips’s head.
But there is a lot of good stuff in this film. Shélan O’Keefe as the elder daughter gives a fine, nuanced performance. I liked how the relationship between her and her father developed; there’s tension between the two from the outset but it avoids the obvious path of it culminating in big arguments and instead goes for some subtler observations and developments which work well. And the ending of the film I found to be genuinely moving.
There were other nicely observed moments in the film but in the end, it didn’t add up to terribly much for me and I even found it a bit bland. It’s an OK film but I can’t see it having the qualities to being a breakout hit when it’s released in America in October (although I’m sure it will be quite popular amongst those people who have loved ones serving in Iraq currently).
My muted reaction to it was reflected by the crowd I was watching it with I think; when the film ended, a smattering of applause began to break out (as tends to happen amongst festival crowds I suppose) but then petered out. It’s just too minor a film to evoke strong support (or negativity) for it amongst the masses.
Gone Elsewhere 
This is currently scheduled to be released here in the States in October. Being a Weinstein release, that probably actually means that it’s being released here in March.
I’ll be interested to see it, though, because it seems like a change of pace for Cusack, who sorely seems to need one.
More from Wells @ HE
“Being a Weinstein release, that probably actually means that it’s being released here in March.”
By the time they’re through, this film will be lucky not to have a “Mimic 5:” before the title.
That’s funny.
But seriously, if they hire Robert Rodriguez to do reshoots, I’m skipping it.
Haha, Rodriguez reshoots and they’ll dump Clint Eastwood’s score for Marco Beltrami.
Saw this today, and I think this is a good review.
The film starts out really, really badly, and I thought I was really going to loathe it. Cusack is such a sad-sack loser, even before he gets the news of his wife’s death, that I honestly dreaded the thought of watching this asshole for an entire movie. Then he gets the news and acts in such an irresponsible, cowardly way that I just couldn’t see how the movie could possibly be redeemed. By the time of his confrontation with his brother, I was almost ready to walk out.
But after that things got a little better. I thought the treatment of Heidi, the older daughter, was very well done. I thought she behaved just like a smart, independently minded girl would, and like you, was glad that there was no big shouting confrontation between her and Stanley.
Still, I’m way down on the movie as a whole. I thought Cusack’s performance was very weak for the most part, and downright awful at the outset. It didn’t seem like he was able to play more than one emotion during any scene. It’s like the director told him something before the take like, “OK, you’re sad in this scene,” and so Cusack read his dialogue in his sad voice.
And while I was happy about the low-key nature of the ending, setting the big revelation on the beach, with the sunset afterwards, really rubbed me the wrong way. I thought the impact was cheapened by imposing such an obviously symbolic postcard setting. And I agree that the answering machine device was bad.
Yeah, agree that Cusack was one of the main weaknesses of the film. His performance is bordering on caricature (and a patronising one at that), which seems totally out of whack with the style of the film and Cusack’s reasons for making this film.
Hard to judge from here in Australia how the film is being received by critics and the public, but it appears not to be a particularly strong response. I’m not surprised; looking back over my review my feelings haven’t changed on it several months later. There are many things a film covering this topic could be, but bland isn’t one of them.
btw, Roger Ebert says Cusack gives a ‘great’ performance. As much as I enjoyed much of what Ebert has written over the years, it’s opinions like that that make me think he’s been on the downhill slide for quite some time.
Ebert’s hardly the only one, though (he is sometimes). Looking at Metacritic, the film has received several positive reviews, with many of them praising Cusack. Of course, when it comes to, say, Stephen Holden, I can believe that “patronising” is part of the allure.
Ebert’s top ten list is out today, some curious entries. I liked Juno, but to call it the best of the year is vastly overrating it. Also, La Vie en Rose? Nice performance, but not a very good film.
In his second ten, he also misidentifies Naomi Watts as Maria Bello in Eastern Promises. Honest mistake, but doesn’t he have an editor?
Yeah, on its own it’s unfair to bag Ebert just on the basis of his opinion of Cusack’s performance; I guess it’s been the accumulation of a decade or so of decline imo (probably start off with giving Speed 2: Cruise Control a thumbs up), generally demonstrated by excessively generous reviews; the amount of films he gives the maximum rating to is absurdly high.
True, but in response, I’ve simply adjusted my own interpretation of what his star ratings mean. Now, instead of meaning that it’s one of the year’s best movies, four stars from him simply is an indication that it’s worth going out of my way to see. And on that scale, he’s pretty reliable.
I am very surprised that he named Juno as the year’s best, though (I’m planning to see it tonight). I really expected that No Country for Old Men would be it.