Product: Everybody's Fine (2009)
Rating: 4.0
nothing special but special as it is
This movie was nothing special . . . it was a story that millions could tell. But was a good, honest story. And because millions can identify in some way it is worth seeing. The topic has been covered many times but never gets tiring. And this is a fresh take as it is from the perspective of, not mom, not a woman, but a man--dad. This perspective seems to be lost since "liberation", since the 70s, 80s, and beyond. While it would be easy for someone of my age to not know better I have seen movies before this 70s, before my time, and realize that since then things are usually told from a woman's perspective. I think the movie would have been a classic if not for two sections: 1) DeNiro's cursing Christ while golfing with the grandkid . . . . I am aware that some people, in particular, in a certain region of the US, use Christ's name as a curse word, they should be as PC as they claim and realize it is really offense to others--to Christians. and 2) the "ghost"/imaginary scene in the hospital toward the end . . . it added nothing and kinda cheapened the point that we, the viewer, had been taken to at that point. It was enough to hear DeNiro's character's doubts at that point and then to hear the real truth later with the telephone pole painting scene, if felt. Anyway it was a cute story. Sad. Very sad. But a good ending that didn't leave you feeling despair but that, while things weren't great, that they were/would be "fine".