Everybody's Fine (12A.)
Directed by Kirk Jones.
Starring Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, Melissa Leo. 100 mins
As he has aged De Niro has become something of a Muppet face. Not Muppet in the pejorative sense but in the way his features have set themselves in a shape where he resembles a composite of all the Muppets with the downturned smile. He’s also become entrapped within that repertoire of ticks, glances, shrugs and grimaces that his acting has become – an autopilot avatar with which he could cruise lucratively through a lean decade or two of his career.
Wel,l the whole DeNiro inventory is on display her but there is a difference. It’s not some kind of barnstorming return to Taxi Driver form, but there are signs of a light behind the eyes, that someone might actually be at the controls this time.
The film is a remake of the 1990 Italian films which was Giuseppe Tornatore’s follow up to Cinema Paradiso. Marcello Mastriani played a widower who decides to leave his Sicilian home and visit his five prosperous, successful children on the main land after they all fail to turn up for a family gathering. Except, the reality proves to be considerably less rosy.
De Niro takes the lead role which means that the 66-year-old is playing his age. (Maybe Righteous Kill showed him that he and Pacino no longer look convincing playing cops, not even on the posters.) It’s tricky playing your age; Jack Nicholson tried it in About Schmidt and though he’s tremendous, you never really believed he was old, least not the way you or I would be old. When he was in bed with a woman his own age, it just seemed ridiculous.
De Niro though does seem to be genuinely pensionable. He’s a little befuddled and when he starts up conversations on trains and buses it is like a new hobby he’s taken up to fill the emptiness that his wife left.
The film is gentle and sentimental which will be used as a stick to beat it with but that’s what it sets out to be and it does, mostly, rather well. Brit Kirk Jones (Waking Ned, Nany PcPhee) brings some element of freshness to the tired old trail of planes, trains and buses. Though he has concocted a clumsy contrivance to explain away the offspring’s’ thoughtlessness the film has some gentle feeling for the problems of aging and familial relationships.
It does let itself down a bit with in the last ten minutes. Spoilers – this is a great cast but Hollywood actors should never try to replicate a standard family holiday get together. They are just too far gone to do it; it ends up as forced and awkward as the moments of spontaneous “fun” at political party conferences.
De Niro reviews -
Everybody's Fine,
What Just Happened?
Silver Linings Playbook
Last Vegas
Midnight Run
Machete
Directed by Kirk Jones.
Starring Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, Melissa Leo. 100 mins
As he has aged De Niro has become something of a Muppet face. Not Muppet in the pejorative sense but in the way his features have set themselves in a shape where he resembles a composite of all the Muppets with the downturned smile. He’s also become entrapped within that repertoire of ticks, glances, shrugs and grimaces that his acting has become – an autopilot avatar with which he could cruise lucratively through a lean decade or two of his career.
Wel,l the whole DeNiro inventory is on display her but there is a difference. It’s not some kind of barnstorming return to Taxi Driver form, but there are signs of a light behind the eyes, that someone might actually be at the controls this time.
The film is a remake of the 1990 Italian films which was Giuseppe Tornatore’s follow up to Cinema Paradiso. Marcello Mastriani played a widower who decides to leave his Sicilian home and visit his five prosperous, successful children on the main land after they all fail to turn up for a family gathering. Except, the reality proves to be considerably less rosy.
De Niro takes the lead role which means that the 66-year-old is playing his age. (Maybe Righteous Kill showed him that he and Pacino no longer look convincing playing cops, not even on the posters.) It’s tricky playing your age; Jack Nicholson tried it in About Schmidt and though he’s tremendous, you never really believed he was old, least not the way you or I would be old. When he was in bed with a woman his own age, it just seemed ridiculous.
De Niro though does seem to be genuinely pensionable. He’s a little befuddled and when he starts up conversations on trains and buses it is like a new hobby he’s taken up to fill the emptiness that his wife left.
The film is gentle and sentimental which will be used as a stick to beat it with but that’s what it sets out to be and it does, mostly, rather well. Brit Kirk Jones (Waking Ned, Nany PcPhee) brings some element of freshness to the tired old trail of planes, trains and buses. Though he has concocted a clumsy contrivance to explain away the offspring’s’ thoughtlessness the film has some gentle feeling for the problems of aging and familial relationships.
It does let itself down a bit with in the last ten minutes. Spoilers – this is a great cast but Hollywood actors should never try to replicate a standard family holiday get together. They are just too far gone to do it; it ends up as forced and awkward as the moments of spontaneous “fun” at political party conferences.
De Niro reviews -
Everybody's Fine,
What Just Happened?
Silver Linings Playbook
Last Vegas
Midnight Run
Machete
