THE UPSIDE OF ANGER
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2005 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
In THE UPSIDE OF ANGER, Joan Allen and Kevin Costner deliver performances so strong that you shouldn't be surprised if they get Oscar nominations. As written and directed by Mike Binder, the movie meanders as it tries to find its next thought. But, when it does locate it, the story sizzles. Mainly a serious character study, the audience pleasing moments are its humorous interludes, which are nicely done.
Like Nicolas Cage in LEAVING LAS VEGAS, Allen, as Terry Wolfmeyer, plays an unabashed alcoholic who shoots the neighbors the shaft when they dare tell her to slow down. They may fear a drunk behind the wheel, but Allen's Wolfmeyer is one of those movie's version of a lush who rarely shows any signs of significant inebriation. No matter how much she rapidly swigs down, you won't her see falling over or slurring her words. It's too bad that real alcoholics don't have her consistent control.
Wolfmeyer, the angry woman from the title, is bitterly unhappy because her husband left her and her four daughters, from high school to college age, and ran off with his young secretary. Wolfmeyer leads the typical movie life in which money is never an issue. She resides very comfortably in a Michigan mansion, which is set in a bucolic setting of rows and rows of mansions. (The story's pastoral settings, with its ever changing seasons, make the most compelling cinematic argument ever made for the joys of living in the Detroit suburbs. You'll swear the film was financed by the Detroit Chamber of Commerce and the Detroit Board of Tourism.)
Wolfmeyer doesn't work, nor does she need to, but her girls, played nicely by Erika Christensen, Evan Rachel Wood, Keri Russell and Alicia Witt, are all busy contemplating their life's work. As the youngest daughter, Wood provides voice-over work that starts off insightful but ends up sounding pretty pretentious.
As a washed-up, once-great baseball player named Denny Davies, Costner gives a sweet performance. Whatever position Davies played in the majors, his current position is that of Wolfmeyer's drinking buddy. An on-going joke between them is that the chance of them having sex together is so unlikely that the possibility only occurs as often as the appearance of Haley's Comet, an event which happens every 57 years according to Wolfmeyer and even longer according Davies's sources.
The structure of the movie is a bit of a problem since a surprising event in the last act is all but given away needlessly in the opening, which is set during a funeral, after which the movie flashes back three years and then works its way forward. THE UPSIDE OF ANGER, even if it is too slow and even if it's never as good as it should have been, does have undeniable pleasures, the chief among them is watching Costner and Allen do some marvelous work.
THE UPSIDE OF ANGER runs too long at 2:01. It is rated R for "language, sexual situations, brief comic violence and some drug use" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens in limited release in the United States on Friday, March 18, 2005. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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