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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 12/24/2007 : 12:05:09
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Grace is GoneJohn Cusack can do no wrong. Whatever you put him in, he's going to raise the quality level. So whatever's wrong with Grace is Gone cannot be laid at Cusack's door.
And the most telling failure of the film is a derivative story which adds nothing new to the canon of people's reaction to the military death of a spouse and how its aftermath affects the family. The fact that whereas most such stories feature the widow, in this case Cusack is the widower. Without make-up or prosthetics his demeanor, his carriage, the way he relates to his eyeglasses [since poor eyesight is why he can't be a solider, too], Cusack completes all the details of his character not fully defined in the script. Sorry, it ain't enough.
Mind you, there's nothing wrong per se with the film's narrative, and there's everything right with the relationship built up between Cusack and his two young daughters. Unable to dump the news on them - particulary in light of the way the military has interpreted a 'caring' revelation to him - unable to allow himself to go through the process of loss - he uses delay as his coping strategy. He yanks the girls out of school and takes them on a long car trip to the temptingly named Enchanted Gardens.
Along the way he stops off at his own family home, possibly to tighten loose family ties, but only his vociferously anti-war anti-establishment brother is home. It's the only time the film widens its nagging reference to the function of war in modern society.
The film concentrates almost entirely on the responsibilites of fatherhood and the profundity of family love. Ironically, that's its strength and its weakness.
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Whippersnapper. 
"A fourword thinking guy."
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 12/24/2007 : 14:18:29
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Saw it last January at Sundance, so it's not nearly as fresh for me as it is for you, but I have to disagree. I thought it was an original way to depict a soldier's family's grief -- at least I hadn't seen it before. It's no BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, but the close-in study and oblique failure to come to grips with the loss were actually quite interesting. For me, the only sore thumbs were the messages he left on the answering machine. Too long, and too many. The device would have worked had it been used more sparingly.
EDIT: And IMHO, Cusack can do wrong. People's Exhibit #1: THE MARTIAN CHILD. |
Edited by - randall on 12/28/2007 04:45:25 |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 12/29/2007 : 10:37:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Randall
EDIT: And IMHO, Cusack can do wrong. People's Exhibit #1: THE MARTIAN CHILD.
Hmm, dunno, it hasn't been out here yet, and if what I'm reading about it is anything to go by, it never may be. But an actor making a wrong choice and appearing in a bad movie, as you well know, isn't the same as that actor giving a bad performance. Besides, stage-work aside, there are just too many factors that might affect the results you see on screen -- bad direction, bad script, bad editing.
Cusack's been in far too many films where he delivers at least if not far more than what's asked for to make me believe his talent would suddenly desert him in this one.
I don't know him, so I have no idea whether he's beginning to adopt Brando's shameful tactic of testing his respect for a director and then turning in an uninspired performance if he felt the director didn't know what he was doing.
I doubt it, but hey I could be wrong!
Back to Grace is Gone -- it's an interesting contrast to In The Valley of Elah, which I'll write up v. soon, but which also deals with aspects of family grief against the backdrop of the war in Iraq.
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 12/29/2007 : 22:05:03
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quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
EDIT: And IMHO, Cusack can do wrong. People's Exhibit #1: THE MARTIAN CHILD.
Hmm, dunno, it hasn't been out here yet, and if what I'm reading about it is anything to go by, it never may be. But an actor making a wrong choice and appearing in a bad movie, as you well know, isn't the same as that actor giving a bad performance. Besides, stage-work aside, there are just too many factors that might affect the results you see on screen -- bad direction, bad script, bad editing.
Cusack's been in far too many films where he delivers at least if not far more than what's asked for to make me believe his talent would suddenly desert him in this one.
I don't know him, so I have no idea whether he's beginning to adopt Brando's shameful tactic of testing his respect for a director and then turning in an uninspired performance if he felt the director didn't know what he was doing.
I doubt it, but hey I could be wrong!
What a refreshing position for a person to take on the Internet! [A pox on all these blogs!]
Sure, I know what you're saying: I thought Cusack personally saved both IDENTITY [his climactic duet with Pruett Taylor Vince is just breathtaking] and that Stephen King movie about the haunted hotel room. He's berry, berry good. But "do no wrong"? Everybody has to make a living... |
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Grace is Gone
