Search - Everybody's Fine on DVD

Beautiful, Meaningful, Sad & Ultimately Heart-Touching!!

MUZIK4THAPEOPLE!! | Orlando, FL | 03/07/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What can I say about Robert DeNiro that we don't already know....

In addition to playing some of the most iconic characters of the last 35 yrs in film,

he is in the upper echelon of the greatest actors ever to do it!

He has proven this fact even more in the last 15 yrs, where he has added to his

reportoire of serious & menacing tough guy roles, sharply comedic and deeply emotional

ones as well in which he has proven to be quite effective.

This movie "Everybody's Fine" is an emotional tour de force!

Deniro plays an aging father who is recently widowed and counting his own last days as

an undisclosed disease slowly ravages his body. He finds himself lonely and trying to keep

up the good front as he struggles from day to day just with the mundane tasks of life.

His only solace comes in the memories he has of his children, all grown now and living their

own lives in different cities across the country.

When he invites them all home for a cookout/family reunion, he is disappointed

when they all find reasons to cancel one by one because their busy schedules.

What DeNiro's character finds is that in his zeal to see his kids do well in life,

he has in fact pushed them all so hard that they feel alienated from him.

They all found it much more easier to communicate with their deceased mother,

who, like a lot of mothers, handled the affairs of her children's lives as well

her own with seemingly effortless ease. She never shared any bad news with her husband

(their father) regarding the struggles of their kids lives, inadvertently helping

to foster the very detached emotional environment he finds himself in with his kids.

This he doesn't like, as he is now in a reflective state in his life and wanting

and needing his children to be closer to him. So he sets about his own journey

to re-acquaint himself with each one of them, and without giving anymore away,

it suffices to say that it's a journey filled with deep emotion and substance

that will have you shedding more than a few tears before it's all over.

Not only is DeNiro subtle & brilliant in this, but he's supported by an excellent cast

of top shelf actors and actresses who collectively help to bring this film home big time!

These are things that REAL PEOPLE face in EVERYDAY LIFE as we grow older, things

change, we lose our loved ones, and the stresses of the day to day grind pull us

further and further apart from the loved ones who are still alive.

This story is filled with brilliant writing and direction as well

and I warn you, you will be tearing up a few times before it ends!

I rented this movie first to check it out, but I'll defintely be buying it

very soon because it's worth it. I highly recommend this film! (-:"

I'm a little verklempt. Talk amonst yourselves. I'll give yo

Gregory Ehrbar | Orlando, FL | 02/16/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Everybody's Fine is a "people" movie, a study of characters -- both central and peripheral. It's a drama with some comedic elements, heavy on emotion but low on over-the-top histrionics. And depending on where it might hit you in your own life, it can be a real tearjerker, in that good way that makes you think about the important things and discuss them with the important people in your life.



Robert DeNiro gives an understated performance as a father who would not or could not realize he was expressing lifelong disappointment with his children if they were less than "the best." They had spent years hiding any flaws from him and sharing their struggles only with their mother, who had passed several months earlier.



Their stories come together as he travels the country to reconnect. Along the way, British director Kirk Wise (Waking Ned, Nanny McPhee) presents snapshots of interesting characters and fascinating faces, both genial and malevolent.



The part that touched my wife and me most was the technique using children to speak for their grownup counterparts in key sections of the film. DeNiro's character still sees them as school age kids and, through his reveries, so do we. It's not a new technique but it seems to work effectively here and often hits hard in ways that standard confrontational scenes could not. Since our kids are school age and we have parents we want to please too, it made my wife and I think about our own parent/child relationships.



One of the messages of the movie seems to be that it's not too late to pick up the pieces, but you can suffer great losses if you get too distracted and wait too long -- and we all need to take a breath and be more accepting of one another's choices. It's not so much that we should "settle" but rather that there are better ways to measure true success.



My only criticism of the DVD is that there is NO AUDIO COMMENTARY. There are a few extended scenes and a short look at Paul McCartney's involvement in creating a song for the film. A commentary was sorely missed.



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