Movie Review: Everybody’s Fine

by Ellen Sterling

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Everybody's Fine A new movie with Robert DeNiro
Poster courtesy of Miramax Films

As I watched Everybody’s Fine — Robert DeNiro’s latest film — I couldn’t help thinking of Sunset Blvd. In that 1950 Billy Wilder classic, young writer Joe Gillis (William Holden) says to silent screen star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), “You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.” She responds, “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

Well, I believe DeNiro is still big but Everybody’s Fine is way, way too small for him. For that matter, it’s too small for a supporting cast that includes the actors playing his children — Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell. It’s also too small for an audience who expects anything resembling a believable story.

This is the story of recent widower Frank Goode. He leaves his Elmira, NY home to go on a road trip, planning to visit his two sons and two daughters in New York City, Chicago, Denver and Las Vegas. On his first stop in Manhattan he cannot find his son. He sits, seemingly for hours, on the stoop of his son’s building waiting for the child that never shows up. His other children are clearly reluctant to see him and are clearly keeping secrets from their father. He is oblivious.

This is a remake of a 1990 Italian film, Stanno Tutti Bene. The original starred Marcello Mastroianni. This version is directed by Kirk Jones whose 1998 feature debut was the sweet, delightful Waking Ned Devine. This film has neither of those attributes and it’s difficult to figure out why it was even remade.

Frank is a real sad sack, slow on the uptake and, judging from the fact that he clearly doesn’t know that a suitcase nowadays comes equipped with wheels (or, in fact, that one can actually carry a small suitcase on a plane rather than checking it),he’s not terribly worldly. One cannot help wondering how he’s survived even eight months of widowhood with no one watching over him.

The film is laden with obvious symbolism — Frank worked in a factory putting plastic coating on telephone wires and, therefore, just about every time someone makes a phone call there’s a shot of phone wires — You know: The wires are carrying all these conversations over all this distance. You can almost see it.

The plot twists, such as they are, contain no surprises. It’s as if the next episode is transmitted lightening-fast across all those phone wires directly to the audience slightly before they occur in the film. The individual who enjoys a good cry can have her (I am assuming it is a “her”) heartstrings tugged and may well find occasion to weep watching the proceedings. But, sadly, there’s also occasion to wonder what all these gifted people are doing here.

The logical conclusion is that Barrymore, Beckinsale and Rockwell are there because DeNiro is there. But why is he? This movie is simply dismal. Robert DeNiro and his audience deserve better.

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