ll 1/2
Starring Will Ferrell, Rebecca Hall, Laura Dern, Michael Pena, Christopher CJ Wallace, Stephen Root and Glenn Howerton. Directed by Dan Rush.
Will Ferrell is impressive in his first beginning-to-end straight role. I know he had Stranger Than Fiction and Melinda & Melinda but those were still basically comedies. Here, he's an alcoholic having the worst day of his life. He gets fired from his job and returns home to find he's locked out of his house with all his stuff on the front lawn.
The movie says it's based on a Raymond Carver story. The actual story is only four pages long. Thus this has the familiar trappings of many a low-budget independent film. The character is established, the movie takes its own sweet time of not much happening, and then we end on a final note that could hopeful or tragic. I won't say which direction this one chose to go, but neither would have surprised me, and that's not a bad thing. Ferrell seems willing and able to go as dark as the filmmakers dare.
I didn't mind taking the journey with Ferrell, even if it's a journey from A to B instead of A to Z.
No comments:
Post a Comment