Everybody’s Fine

Based on the 1990 film by Giuseppe Tornatore, Everybody’s Fine follows recent widower Frank Goode (Robert De Niro) as he embarks on a spontaneous trip to visit his children (Drew Barrymore’s Rosie, Kate Beckinsale’s Amy, and Sam Rockwell’s Robert) – with the journey inevitably forcing Frank to confront a series of unpleasant truths. Filmmaker Kirk Jones has infused Everybody’s Fine with a gentle, decidedly laid-back sensibility that certainly proves an effective complement to his far-from-eventful screenplay, and there’s little doubt that the viewer’s interest is subsequently (and primarily) sustained by the efforts of a uniformly impressive roster of actors – with De Niro’s strong yet far-from-magnetic work often overshadowed by the supporting cast (Rockwell is especially good here). The absence of drama within the film’s opening hour – it’s essentially just Frank traveling around, talking to people – essentially prevents the viewer from wholeheartedly connecting with the material, which, in turn, ensures that certain revelations towards the conclusion aren’t quite able to pack the emotional punch that Jones is clearly striving for (although, to be fair, the film’s penultimate interlude is awfully affecting). The end result is an unapologetically sentimental drama that is, admittedly, almost TV movie-ish in its execution, with the pervasively affable atmosphere ultimately compensating for the sporadically less-than-enthralling nature of the film’s narrative.

**1/2 out of ****