This is a solid, well-acted movie with good performances. Joan Allen is good as always, but I thought it was Kevin Costner who stole the movie. I've always been a big Costner fan even though his acting has never been that strong (with the exception of Dances With Wolves and A Perfect World), but he was a revelation here. I'd love to see he and Allen both get Oscar nominations but the film's early release date and weak box office will probably prevent that.

My biggest complaint is there were just to many characters will too many storylines. Director and writer Mike Binder tries to give each daughter a storyline but none of them get very well-developed. I especially thought Evan Rachel Wood's subplot involving her bungee-jumping friend seemed odd and poorly-developed. All the girls did a good job with what they were given.

My grade: B.

^ I pretty much agree about the daughter's subplots. All the actresses were quite good though.

Joan Allen is wonderful here, so is Costner. Very good movie.

- B+

THE UPSIDE OF ANGER - 7/10 (B-)

It was "good," but I was actually quite disappointed by it in general. It had the potential to be much better than it was considering the cast and the premise. Joan Allen gave a solid performance but Costner was horrible and the two of them didn't have very good chemistry. The stories with the daughters were much more interesting and all four of them gave great performances (especially Evan Rachel Wood and Keri Russell). It was solid and worth checking out though.

D+, boring and pointless love story among rich, pasty suburbanites. The performances and writing were weak. Joan Allen was so unlikeable, if she'd been run over by a truck I'd have cheered, and Costner clearly thinks he's more amusing than he is. Watching a 50+ year old man try to be cute is not fun. Escapes an F by having good production values. Frankly it felt like a Lifetime TV movie.

Joan Allen has to be nominated for this. This was a totally desperate wife type character and she nailed it.

Story is cute but the ending seemed a little out of place. Not sure I get what the director was going for.

A-

Seeing as how I've never posted my review for this, I'm gonna go ahead.

Very decent movie. The ending was pretty touching, and while there were a few great moments, I was sort of disappointed. I'm gonna settle for a B.

B


I agree with the consensus here. It is a solid, but far from great movie. Joan Allen carries it all the way. I understand why some people hated her character as I did too for the first 30-40 minutes. Later on, however, I realized how close her character was to reality and that her very character was the point of the whole movie, the development of her, the things that were caused by her anger and the realization that it all has been for nothing. She delivered a great performance. I wasn't that much impressed by Kevin Costner. He did a decent job, but was not as good as Allen, by far not.

I watched some interviews on the DVD to the movie and in one of them Kevin Costner compares it to American Beauty, calling The Upside of Anger an equal movie to it. I say it's a ludicrous statement. The Upside of Anger never compels as much as American Beauty does and the satire is never as sharp while the performances are not as top-notch, not to speak of the technical values.

As I said, it is still a decent movie. On the upside (no pun intended!), there is an interesting plot development. The movie certainly managed well to mislead me at the beginning thinking that the funeral was of Keri Russell's character and the later on reveal of the truth. That was a well-developed twist that did the movie really well. I certainly didn't see it coming and it stressed the point of the whole film in an appropriate way. As mentioned above, Joan Allen stands out of the cast. Evan Rachel Wood, Erika Christensen, Alicia Witt and Keri Russell build a great ensemble as Terry's daughters and their characters are developed pretty well. However (and this is a really big minus), the director wanted to give each of them an own subplot and that was simply way too much. The subplots did not get enough development and almost all of them are simply dropped and not mentioned again by the end of the movie, in particular the one of Evan Rachel Wood and her gay (?) friend. Nothing resolved their at all.

Another complaint of mine is that the development between Kevin Costner's and Joan Allen's characters goes on way too fast. They need time to develop and it would have done the movie some real good if Mike Binder skipped some of the subplot and concentrated more on the relationship between Cosnter and Allen. Another thing to suffer is the relationship between the four daughters. All of them are good and well-developed characters by their own, but the relationship between them is sadly never highlighted.

At last, but not least, however, the movie has some really nice and mean humor to it. The little nod to Scanners (the exploding head) had me laughing really hard. Overall, there are some quite amusing scenes throughout and depsite getting heavy at times, the movie never loses its humorous touch.

A-

Wow, that was pretty damn good actually. Joan Allen is absolutely amazing, this is such a late addition, but I honestly have to hand her the best female performance of 2005 hands down. The character is joyless, yet the performance is completley vibrant and electric. Too many actresses would travel into dead serious mode, solemness, but Allen is perfect here. The deliveries, the expressions on her face, the way her mouth moves when scraping insults. Brilliant brilliant job by her.

The screenplay is top notch, all the 4 girls and their relationships together and with Terry is strong. Costner does a fine job, though not up to Allen's level in character nor acting, it is still something to be proud of, all the acting was pretty superb actually. This was really, when talking about the family home-life movies, one of the best I have seen in a long time. It had an edge Something's Gotta Give for example was missing, a vitality to it. It felt real, heartcracking.

Fantastic.

I still enjoy this quite a bit, looking back. I'd like to see it again. It was criminally overlooked during awards season last year, and it's one of those cases where they might have wanted to wait until December to release it.

Writer/Director Mike Binder has two upcoming projects that I'm keeping an eye out for. The first hasn't got a release date over here yet, and judging by Hollywoodland's dismal box office, one has to wonder how soon this Ben Affleck/ Rebecca Romijn starring vehicle will get sucked up by theater owners.

He's also got an interesting Adam Sandler/Don Cheadle drama (yes, I said drama) about a man who lost his family in the September 11 attack on New York City.

Yes - Upside of Anger is a fantastic film and I also need to watch it again as I saw it on a plane to London which doesnt have the same impact - but still loved it.

The two films you mention from Mike Bender...the first is Man about Town - a film I'd never heard about until it was released here a few weeks back. Havnt seen it though.

The other is one im looking forward to Reign over Me - due out next March!

BTW - had no idea Mike acted in Minority Report

Theatre owners? Heh

It was released direct-to-DVD here a while ago.