Wick's Review

Summary - Perfect 5.0

A small movie – though not a short one – of deeply personal relationships, You Can Count on Me launched two Hollywood careers and elevated a third. Kenneth Lonergan’s debut marked him as an auteur of surpassing talent, while Mark Ruffalo’s first starring role marked him as an everyman actor of uncommon touch. Laura Linney had been prominent in major movies, but her bereft sister/mother role in You Can Count on Me established her as a first-rank movie actress.

Lonergan’s movie tells the story of a single mother surrounded by unreliable men, none more so than her charming vagabond of a brother. Their sibling bond is all the more important because their parents were killed when they were children. She feels sorry for the males in her life, so gets herself into situations, in part because her self-reliance doesn’t allow her to ask anybody for anything. Meanwhile, her bad apple brother leads others to act out, first his responsible sister, then his lonely nephew.

The brother is the movie’s most interesting character, a passive-aggressive freak who is also a heavy smoker of both weed and cigarettes. One striking scene pictures him smoking a butt while leaning against his Father’s gravestone. Lonergan writes him as a post-hippie beatnik, politically empty though adept at the alienated language of the Left – more Aerosmith than Beatles.

Lonergan’s recent movie Margaret doesn’t reach the finely crafted perfection of You Can Count on Me. But it has many of the same qualities: complex yet relatable characters, prosaic yet compelling plot-lines and even many of the same actors. Thus if you liked this one, watch that one next.

Acting - Really Great 4.5

Laura Linney was paid only $10,000 but achieved movie acting perfection. Her single-mother character is surrounded by males she can’t count on, yet her cheerful indomita’bility keeps her from asking them for anything. Linney’s innate decency and girl-next-door beauty shine through these travails, making her an icon of modern womanhood.

Mark Ruffalo made his mark in Hollywood as her ne’er-do-well brother, a charming fuckup who’s good with his hands, whether playing pool, fishing, wielding a hammer or using his fists. Ruffalo takes this character from the depths of shiftlessness to the relative heights of occasional responsibility. Wow.

The strong supporting cast includes:

• Rory Culkin as Linney’s son and Ruffalo’s nephew, a fatherless boy who both thrives in his uncle’s presence and makes his uncle something approximating a real man.
• Matthew Broderick as Linney’s boss at a local bank. Broderick excels at playing white-bread characters like this.
• Jon Tenney as Linney’s boyfriend, a good guy who can’t … quite … commit.
• J. Smith-Cameron as Linney’s coworker. Smith-Cameron is Lonergan’s wife.
• Kenneth Lonergan – himself – as a surprisingly effective minister.
• Adam LeFevre as a kindly local Sheriff. LeFevre is the kind of character actor whose face is familar but whose name never will be.
• Amy Ryan as Linney and Ruffalo’s Mom, shown in a brief opening cameo.
• Josh Lucas as a no-account baby-daddy. Lucas invests every role with innate character, even if it’s scummy character as here.

Ruffalo, Culkin, Broderick, Smith-Cameron and Lonergan himself reunite in Margaret, Lonergan’s other opus.

Film - Perfect 5.0

Kenneth Lonergan deserved the Best Screenplay Oscar nomination he received for You Can Count on Me. It uses but doesn’t overuse the tragedy of orphanhood to set in motion a multi-generational tale of novelistic scope and detail. It also deftly captures today’s superficially dispassionate workplaces.

He also proved himself a complete filmmaker. Consider the opening. You have to go back to Rear Window for an extended establishing sequence of such touch and coverage. Then blue skies and puffy clouds emerge above the local church. Consummate filmmaking, this.

His choice of music is also perfect: Loretta Lynn songs play when Laura Linney is in her car; Bach’s perfectly melancholy G Major Suite for Solo Cello plays when the focus is on the troubled family home.

Two random questions:

• You Can Count on Me was filmed in Margaretville, NY. Is that a clue to the title of Margaret?
• Jill Footlick is the Line Producer. Is Footlick the ideal name for a movie functionary or what?

Edge - Risqué 2.3

Real people doing real things, more than a little of it stupid. Affairs, fights, intoxication – stupid happens.

Reality - Glib 1.1

Lonergan deserves major credit for his respectful treatment of a small town’s traditional values, including its law enforcement and faith in religion. As to the latter, he himself plays a minister who counsels a wayward atheist in quite effective fashion, parrying aspersions on his relevance and asking perceptively hard questions. If only more movies did this…

1 Comment

• BrianSez Aug 17, 2012 8:47AM

  Regarding Wick’s Review
  Sounds like an awesome find Wick – just added it to my instant queue.

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