Product Details

• Actors: Robert DeNiro, Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale
• Directors: Kirk Jones
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Miramax Films
• DVD Release Date: February 23, 2010
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0032BWL10
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,018 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Everybody's Fine" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

One thing Robert De Niro can't be accused of is avoiding a challenge. Everybody's Fine obliges this respected actor, who made his bones playing dangerous, volatile men, to portray a low-key retiree named Frank Goode. Frank's wife has died, and since she alone kept them in touch with their four grown offspring, now scattered around the country, he's doubly cut off from family. When the Goode kids all find excuses to skip a planned reunion, Frank hauls out his suitcase and boards Amtrak with the intention of dropping in on each of them: the tightly wound Chicago ad exec (Kate Beckinsale), the Denver musician (Sam Rockwell) who's supposedly a symphony conductor, the sweet Vegas showgirl (Drew Barrymore), and the Greenwich Village artist son who's nowhere to be found. That son remains offscreen for the duration, and his portentous absence has the unintended effect of emphasizing what a hollow enterprise Everybody's Fine is. Don't blame the cast, who do yeoman work trying to define their long-unsatisfactory relationship as parent and children. None of the kids hate Dad; they just never found a measure of comfort with him, so now everybody, far from being fine, is living one fiction or another to keep it mellow. For his part, Frank suffers from an undefined illness brought on by his life's work making insulation for phone wires; and lo, throughout his journey we're urged to notice telephone cables slipping by outside the train or bus window--lines of communication!--even as the siblings are warily monitoring Dad's progress by cell phone. Writer-director Kirk Jones once made an ersatz-Irish movie, Waking Ned Devine (1997), that vulgarized ethnicity in the interests of cheap laughs and patronizing sentimentality. In Everybody's Fine Jones manages the neat trick of vulgarizing delicacy. The movie wants to pass for a sensitive meditation on the white lies people tell one another and themselves. But it so reeks of bad faith and calculation that the message isn't worth delivering. --Richard T. Jameson

Stills from Everybody's Fine (Click for larger image)

Product Description

A widower who realized his only connection to his family was through his wife sets off on an impromptu road trip to reunite with each of his grown children. Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 02/23/2010 Starring: Robert De Niro Kate Beckinsale Run time: 100 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Kirk Jones

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DeNiro bulls-eye, December 11, 2009

By 

TheProphetFromTrailopen.com (midwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Everybody's Fine [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

I went by myself, a 62 year-old with 4 grown sons. I sat in my old hunting coat and sniffled and cried for however long it was. I think De Niro wears his role with both an ease and a genius few possess. I'll get the DVD as soon as it's released. I know De Niro's own real-life dad passed shortly before his "Bronx Tales" was released, and perhaps, in some zen-like chi, this kinda closes a circle on the dad-stuff there. I met De Niro once, and was extremely impressed with his character (as in 'integrity', not as in an acting role).

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic. His kids are neither everybody nor fine. Discuss., February 16, 2010

By 

Greg Ehrbar "'MouseTracksOnline'" (Orlando, FL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Everybody's Fine (DVD)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, Meaningful, Sad & Ultimately Heart-Touching!!, March 6, 2010

By 

HE WHO FUNKS BEHIND THE ROWS!! (Seattle & San Diego) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Everybody's Fine (DVD)

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! (-: