Cast: Will Ferrell, Rebecca Hall, Laura Dern, Christopher Jordan Wallace,
When a young female employee accuses Nick of improper behaviour during a work trip, his history of drinking problems and failure to attend rehab conspire against him and he finds himself sitting in the staff parking lot, drinking cans of lager, and stabbing his personalised ‘severance’ pocket knife into the tyres of his boss’s muscle car. When he gets home, he discovers that his wife has dumped all of his worldly possessions on the front lawn, changed the locks, frozen their bank accounts (most of it his money), and left town for a few days to give him a chance to clear out. His fall from grace is completed when a company ‘heavy’ reclaims his car, and his cell phone is barred. Left with no options, Nick decides to drink the rest of his beers sitting in his favourite chair on the front lawn, and he doesn’t move for a long, long time.
Nick’s AA ‘mentor’, Frank, also happens to be a police detective and old friend who helped Nick’s wife kick the habit years earlier and is saddened not to have been able to help Nick in the same way. Frank buys Nick a few days grace by telling the local cops that Nick is having a yard sale, but Nick still needs to get his act together fast. He is helped in the reconstruction of his shattered life by Kenny, a sullen and inquisitive young boy, and Samantha, a beautiful and lonely pregnant woman who has moved in across the road in advance of her salesman husband (who sounds dangerously like a young Nick).
Based on the Raymond Carver short story, ‘Why Don’t You Dance?” this is a shamelessly quirky, heart-warming and sometimes surreal ‘indie’ movie. It combines Todd Phillips’ knack for fleet-footed, economic storytelling, with a more patient tenacity that allows the sombre subject matter to really breathe. The efficiency prevents the film from becoming a pretentious ‘indie’ flick about the suburbs; the patience stops it feeling like Old School: The Later Years.
Will Ferrell’s performance has received some completely undeserved criticism. Stranger Than Fiction proved to the world that while he might never be in the same league as Jim Carey, he is capable of starring in a drama without ruining it. His second ‘serious’ film is further proof that Ferrell has the dexterity and maturity to subtly tweak his characteristic brand of pompous but loveable humour into a more pathos-ridden dramatic style.
This is not a film that takes itself too seriously, but it is also not a ‘comedy’ in the strictest sense. The central performance had to be pitch perfect to accommodate these often conflicting atmospheres, and Ferrell does so perfectly. Apart from Carey or Zach Galifianakis, I can’t think of another actor around who could provide such a disciplined yet light-hearted performance
When a young female employee accuses Nick of improper behaviour during a work trip, his history of drinking problems and failure to attend rehab conspire against him and he finds himself sitting in the staff parking lot, drinking cans of lager, and stabbing his personalised ‘severance’ pocket knife into the tyres of his boss’s muscle car. When he gets home, he discovers that his wife has dumped all of his worldly possessions on the front lawn, changed the locks, frozen their bank accounts (most of it his money), and left town for a few days to give him a chance to clear out. His fall from grace is completed when a company ‘heavy’ reclaims his car, and his cell phone is barred. Left with no options, Nick decides to drink the rest of his beers sitting in his favourite chair on the front lawn, and he doesn’t move for a long, long time.
Nick’s AA ‘mentor’, Frank, also happens to be a police detective and old friend who helped Nick’s wife kick the habit years earlier and is saddened not to have been able to help Nick in the same way. Frank buys Nick a few days grace by telling the local cops that Nick is having a yard sale, but Nick still needs to get his act together fast. He is helped in the reconstruction of his shattered life by Kenny, a sullen and inquisitive young boy, and Samantha, a beautiful and lonely pregnant woman who has moved in across the road in advance of her salesman husband (who sounds dangerously like a young Nick).
Based on the Raymond Carver short story, ‘Why Don’t You Dance?” this is a shamelessly quirky, heart-warming and sometimes surreal ‘indie’ movie. It combines Todd Phillips’ knack for fleet-footed, economic storytelling, with a more patient tenacity that allows the sombre subject matter to really breathe. The efficiency prevents the film from becoming a pretentious ‘indie’ flick about the suburbs; the patience stops it feeling like Old School: The Later Years.
Will Ferrell’s performance has received some completely undeserved criticism. Stranger Than Fiction proved to the world that while he might never be in the same league as Jim Carey, he is capable of starring in a drama without ruining it. His second ‘serious’ film is further proof that Ferrell has the dexterity and maturity to subtly tweak his characteristic brand of pompous but loveable humour into a more pathos-ridden dramatic style.
This is not a film that takes itself too seriously, but it is also not a ‘comedy’ in the strictest sense. The central performance had to be pitch perfect to accommodate these often conflicting atmospheres, and Ferrell does so perfectly. Apart from Carey or Zach Galifianakis, I can’t think of another actor around who could provide such a disciplined yet light-hearted performance
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