Sunday, December 06, 2009
A+E, Movies, Reviews

‘Everybody’s Fine,’ but the movie’s a downer

A ShortTakes review

Last year in “Four Christmases,” Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon raced to visit all four of their parents in different locations on Christmas Day. In this year’s reverse twist, “Everybody’s Fine,” Robert De Niro goes to visit each of his four grown children after they drop out of a family reunion at his house.

De Niro plays widowed retiree Frank Goode, who’s expecting his children to visit for the first time since their mother’s funeral eight months ago. When they make excuses not to come, he decides to surprise all of them. Ignoring his doctor’s advice, he
travels by train and bus from Elmira, N.Y., to Manhattan, Chicago, Denver and Las Vegas. In each location, he finds things aren’t as he thought they were. The children always conspired with their mother to shield him from unpleasant truths he couldn’t handle.

David, the artist, isn’t home; his siblings learn he’s been arrested in Mexico. Amy (Kate Beckinsale) is successful in advertising, less so in her personal life. Robert (Sam Rockwell) is a lowly percussionist with a regional symphony orchestra. Rosie (Drew Barrymore) puts on the best show, picking Frank up in a stretch limo and taking him to a borrowed penthouse. Then a friend (Katherine Moennig) comes by to drop off an infant and ask her to babysit.

Flagrantly false advertising positions “Everybody’s Fine” as a Christmas picture, when the bulk of the story takes place in September, with a brief epilogue at the holidays. All the jokes are in the trailer, which makes the movie look relatively lighthearted, when only a great cast saves it from being totally depressing. 2.5 STARS—Steve Warren