With 'The Upside of Anger,' Mike binder makes another stab at trying to be the Woody Allen of yuppie angst. Binder's last attempt in this genre--the exasperating 'Mind of the Married Man,' HBO's first and shortest-lived male-oriented take on 'Sex and the City'--was undermined by a pathological cynicism about the nature of love and the institution of marriage. The protagonist of that program (portrayed, in true Woody Allen style, by Binder himself) seemed constitutionally incapable of being satisfied with his enormous good fortune--great job, beautiful, intelligent, sensitive wife, newborn baby, etc. The show seemed to suggest that even the most picture-perfect of marriages is always on the brink of oblivion.
In 'The Upside of Anger,' Binder skips the brink and heads straight for the oblivion. Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) wakes up one morning to find herself abruptly abandoned by her husband, who has disappeared, presumably with his Swedish assistant to start a new life, leaving Terry in the lurch with their four precocious daughters--one in college, one a recent high school graduate who has elected not to pursue higher education, and two others still in high school. Terry immediately sets about drowning her sorrows in an endless flood of vodka, and almost instantaneously commences a combative flirtation with Denny (Kevin Costner), a washed up former baseball star who lives around the block, supporting himself with a sports radio show in which he refuses to discuss sports and by selling autographed memorabilia. We are assured by the girls (the film is narrated in voice-over by the youngest, 'Popeye,' played by Evan Rachel Wood) that Terry was once a sweet, caring, unassuming suburban housewife, but for the duration of the film she is a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown, swilling more vodka than a Russian sailor, picking fights with everyone from her daughters to Denny to the old guy down the street who chastens her for driving too fast through the neighborhood.
Allen's performance is typically superb, and it's fun (for a while, anyway) to watch her play against type. Costner--borrowing heavily from Jack Nicholson's turn in 'Terms of Endearment'--is refreshingly relaxed, likable, and humble (he put on 20 pounds for the role) as Denny, a has-been lush with a good heart who sees in Terry and her family a way to restore some meaning to his purposeless existence. Binder appears again, this time as Shep, Denny's sleazy radio producer, who seduces Terry's daughter Andy (Erika Christensen), which provides the catalyst for the film's most visceral confrontation (Shep gets his comeuppance, and while he deserves it, it's hard not to feel as if Binder is offering a sort of twisted mea culpa for the crime that was 'The Mind of the Married Man').
The girls all acquaint themselves well enough, but there isn't enough room in the picture for any of them to really resonate. Terry is most at odds with Hadley (Alicia Witt), the eldest, but beyond the natural mother-daughter tension, it's hard to see where the conflict stems from. Andy's dalliance with Shep gives Allen some great material to freak out over, but Andy seems almost to be just an excuse to get Binder's character into the mix. Keri Russell is lovely and appealing as Emily, whose ambition to be a ballerina is stifled by Terry's controlling pragmatism, and Evan Rachel Wood's Popeye is a pleasure to watch, even if she seems a bit excessively insightful and eloquent for 14--but with so many subplots hovering around a central plot line without a whole lot of acute tension, Binder's efforts to develop all 4 girls leaves the picture feeling muddy and unfocused.
And, of course, after all of the kvetching and public outbursts, Binder wraps everything up in a neat little bow with a surprising but highly unlikely twist at the end, so that everyone gets to live happily ever after. Most problematic is that the twist--which I won't reveal here--ends up undermining and effectively erasing the significance of Terry's emotional roller coaster, around which the entire picture is structured. There are other problems as well: why doesn't Terry have any friends, or, at the very least, any neighbors other than Denny checking in on her? Wouldn't one of the daughters at least try to contact their father, for Terry's sake if not their own? How much money do these people have, and where's it all coming from? With her husband gone, Terry seems to do nothing but drink with Denny and go to the grocery store--what did she do with herself before her husband disappeared?
The dialog is witty and urbane, and it's fun to watch charming and attractive actors populating the pristine suburban environs (the film is almost worth watching just for Terry's kitchen and dining room), so the film has its pleasures. It merely fails to achieve the sort of profound insight it seems to be grasping for. This is, in essence, the fatal flaw of Binder's style: despite all of the wit and neurotic humor, in the end, he wants us to get 'the moral of the story.' He is perhaps a bit too eager to tell the audience what it's all supposed to mean, and that, by god, this is important stuff. I mean, really--how seriously can we take the neurosis of a woman who lives in a million-dollar home, has extensive funds and no need to work, four gorgeous and intelligent girls, and a hunky good-time-Charlie around the corner who smiles and strokes her ego when she vents her spleen at him? Binder would be much better served to do away with the trite, pedantic narration and put his trust in the talents of Joan Allen, who, even as a bitter alcoholic, transmits the kind of wisdom and insight even the finest of writers are rarely capable of on their best days.
In 'The Upside of Anger,' Binder skips the brink and heads straight for the oblivion. Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) wakes up one morning to find herself abruptly abandoned by her husband, who has disappeared, presumably with his Swedish assistant to start a new life, leaving Terry in the lurch with their four precocious daughters--one in college, one a recent high school graduate who has elected not to pursue higher education, and two others still in high school. Terry immediately sets about drowning her sorrows in an endless flood of vodka, and almost instantaneously commences a combative flirtation with Denny (Kevin Costner), a washed up former baseball star who lives around the block, supporting himself with a sports radio show in which he refuses to discuss sports and by selling autographed memorabilia. We are assured by the girls (the film is narrated in voice-over by the youngest, 'Popeye,' played by Evan Rachel Wood) that Terry was once a sweet, caring, unassuming suburban housewife, but for the duration of the film she is a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown, swilling more vodka than a Russian sailor, picking fights with everyone from her daughters to Denny to the old guy down the street who chastens her for driving too fast through the neighborhood.
Allen's performance is typically superb, and it's fun (for a while, anyway) to watch her play against type. Costner--borrowing heavily from Jack Nicholson's turn in 'Terms of Endearment'--is refreshingly relaxed, likable, and humble (he put on 20 pounds for the role) as Denny, a has-been lush with a good heart who sees in Terry and her family a way to restore some meaning to his purposeless existence. Binder appears again, this time as Shep, Denny's sleazy radio producer, who seduces Terry's daughter Andy (Erika Christensen), which provides the catalyst for the film's most visceral confrontation (Shep gets his comeuppance, and while he deserves it, it's hard not to feel as if Binder is offering a sort of twisted mea culpa for the crime that was 'The Mind of the Married Man').
The girls all acquaint themselves well enough, but there isn't enough room in the picture for any of them to really resonate. Terry is most at odds with Hadley (Alicia Witt), the eldest, but beyond the natural mother-daughter tension, it's hard to see where the conflict stems from. Andy's dalliance with Shep gives Allen some great material to freak out over, but Andy seems almost to be just an excuse to get Binder's character into the mix. Keri Russell is lovely and appealing as Emily, whose ambition to be a ballerina is stifled by Terry's controlling pragmatism, and Evan Rachel Wood's Popeye is a pleasure to watch, even if she seems a bit excessively insightful and eloquent for 14--but with so many subplots hovering around a central plot line without a whole lot of acute tension, Binder's efforts to develop all 4 girls leaves the picture feeling muddy and unfocused.
And, of course, after all of the kvetching and public outbursts, Binder wraps everything up in a neat little bow with a surprising but highly unlikely twist at the end, so that everyone gets to live happily ever after. Most problematic is that the twist--which I won't reveal here--ends up undermining and effectively erasing the significance of Terry's emotional roller coaster, around which the entire picture is structured. There are other problems as well: why doesn't Terry have any friends, or, at the very least, any neighbors other than Denny checking in on her? Wouldn't one of the daughters at least try to contact their father, for Terry's sake if not their own? How much money do these people have, and where's it all coming from? With her husband gone, Terry seems to do nothing but drink with Denny and go to the grocery store--what did she do with herself before her husband disappeared?
The dialog is witty and urbane, and it's fun to watch charming and attractive actors populating the pristine suburban environs (the film is almost worth watching just for Terry's kitchen and dining room), so the film has its pleasures. It merely fails to achieve the sort of profound insight it seems to be grasping for. This is, in essence, the fatal flaw of Binder's style: despite all of the wit and neurotic humor, in the end, he wants us to get 'the moral of the story.' He is perhaps a bit too eager to tell the audience what it's all supposed to mean, and that, by god, this is important stuff. I mean, really--how seriously can we take the neurosis of a woman who lives in a million-dollar home, has extensive funds and no need to work, four gorgeous and intelligent girls, and a hunky good-time-Charlie around the corner who smiles and strokes her ego when she vents her spleen at him? Binder would be much better served to do away with the trite, pedantic narration and put his trust in the talents of Joan Allen, who, even as a bitter alcoholic, transmits the kind of wisdom and insight even the finest of writers are rarely capable of on their best days.