Customer Reviews

The Upside of Anger

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(46)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

Should anybody ever ask you the meaning of the idiom "tightly wound", you only need recommend THE UPSIDE OF ANGER as a visual explanation.

Joan Allen stars as Terry Wolfmeyer, the middle-aged mother of four daughters precipitously abandoned by her husband, who's apparently run off to Scandinavia with his Swedish personal secretary. Terry internalizes her tremendous rage, and only just manages to control it with constant alcohol consumption. Her composure is further taxed by daughters Andy (Erika Christensen), "Popeye" (Evan Rachel Wood), Emily (Keri Russell), and Hadley (Alicia Witt) - all of whom are making life choices regarding love, sex, and education with which Mom vehemently disagrees. Circling the periphery of the Wolfmeyer household looking for a romantic opportunity with Terry is Denny Davies (Kevin Costner), an easy going but lonely ex-baseball star who subsists on beer and the money earned from autographing baseballs and hosting a radio talk show.

Once again, Allen demonstrates that her acting ability is a national treasure. Is it too soon in the 2005 film season to mention Academy Award? And Costner, who's had his Big Screen ups and downs, hits it just right with Davies, a role perhaps suggesting a composite of the characters he played in BULL DURHAM and TIN CUP. The young actresses playing the daughters are all beautiful and delightful, though it stretched my credulity to believe that they were siblings. And I think that there was one sister too many. (As in the planting of garden trees, three is the "right" number.)

It's enormously refreshing both to see a love story involving a man and woman, albeit boozy walking wounded, on the down slope of middle-age, and to see at work a talented actress (Allen), who, at least for this production, managed to crack the infamous age ceiling traditionally imposed on female leads. You go, girl!

Anger, though caustic to the soul, can also keep one going during bad times. Here, when Terry's mental crutch is suddenly yanked away late in the film by a surprising discovery in the woods in back of her house, she must emotionally evolve, and do it fast or sanity is lost.

For those viewers on the far side of forty, THE UPSIDE OF ANGER should prove to be an enormously engaging movie experience about relationships and inner salvation. While it won't, perhaps, prove to be the best film of 2005, it'll certainly be in the Top 20.

Terry Wolfmeyer was, in her daughter's words, the "sweetest, nicest, woman that anyone who knew her ever knew". That is, until her husband ran off with his secretary leaving her with 4 cheeky daughters, a lovely suburban Detroit home, and a lot of self-pity. "Then things changed. And she changed. She got angry. Good and angry." Terry (Joan Allen) turns herself into an embittered lush and has an affair with an equally drunk neighbor Denny Davies (Kevin Costner). Denny's an affable, easy-going ex-pro baseball player who trades on his former glory to make a living. Terry is of the opposite temperament: controlling, intense, and self-important, so they make quite a pair. Preoccupied with her husband's rejection and using her victimhood to excuse all manner of outrageous behavior, Terry still finds time to be appalled by her eldest daughter Hadley's (Alicia Witt) marriage, her ballet dancer daughter Emily's (Keri Russell) choice of career, and other daughter Andy's (Erika Christensen) boyfriend. Only the youngest of the family, Popeye (Evan Rachel Wood), escapes her venom.

The key to enjoying "The Upside of Anger" is to understand that it is a black comedy. The film's fault is that that is not obvious. The humor in Terry's behavior is clear, but it's always played straight, which sometimes makes it difficult to know if we are watching a comedy or a tragedy. The film's tone is inscrutable. It has a sense of humor, but at the same time is consumed by Terry's anger. Terry seems to have everything in the world except a husband, whom she apparently didn't love anyway. Her life is remarkably unchanged by his abandonment. Yet she never ceases to feel sorry for herself, and she tries to keep such a tight reign on everyone around her that we feel she might crack. Terry is sympathetic only up to a point. Fortunately, writer/director Mike Binder sensed the limit of our sympathy and made the characters act accordingly.

Even if we're unsure of how we should take Terry Wolfmeyer, this is one of Joan Allen's most memorable performances, and that's saying a lot. Terry is overbearing, seems to resent her daughters' happiness and successes, and goes out of her way to find something to criticize. But she is cognizant of her own foibles. She is also possessed of a fierce love for her children, even if they wish they saw more of the love and less of the fierce. All of the characters are self-aware and refreshingly forthright. Mike Binder has written a smart film with impressively sharp dialogue. -And he is fantastically funny in the role of Andie's lecherous older boyfriend Shep. Like Terry, Shep is a alternately sympathetic/repulsive/hilarious character who is, nonetheless, blunt and insightful no matter what he does. Denny Davies is Kevin Costner's best role in years, a tolerant, caring, slacker-ish neighbor who is brighter than he seems. Denny and Terry's boozy relationship is certainly entertaining and gives the film an element of romantic comedy. The audience can choose to take "The Upside of Anger" as seriously or as lightly as it wants. The film's greatest strength may be in the fact that it is simultaneously very funny and very true. But it's never dumb.

The DVD (New Line 2005): Bonus features include a theatrical trailer, 8 deleted scenes, a DVD-ROM (Windows only), a making-of documentary, and an audio commentary. "Creating the Upside of Anger" (27 minutes) features interviews with the cast, producers, and writer/director/actor Mike Binder. Binder discusses writing the film for Joan Allen and getting it made. Actors discuss each other, characters, and filming. There is some information on Mike Binder's career. This documentary should have been edited down, but there is some interesting info. The audio commentary is by Mike Binder and Joan Allen, moderated by Rod Lurie. It starts off as a prolonged mutual admiration society but does eventually move on to discuss characters, themes, and talk a great deal about decisions in writing the film. Binder does at one point address the comedy-drama genre confusion. Subtitles are available for the film in English and Spanish.

When her husband's secretary goes back to Sweden and then her husband disappears, Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) puts two and two together. As far as Terry is concerned, her husband no longer exists and is dead to her and their four daughters. At the start of "The Upside of Anger" Terry is not so much angry as she is drunk. When next door neighbor and former baseball player Denny Davies (Kevin Costner) finds out about Terry's situation, both the news that her husband is gone and the fact that she is drinking all of the time, he walks into her house and into her life. Denny's reasons for doing so are not clear. He could just be looking for a new drinking partner, or he could be recognizing a person whose life has just crumbled beneath then. Then again, maybe he just wants sex. But when Terry decides she just wants sex, Denny flees, so we have to think there is more going on.

The relationship between Terry and Denny is the main plotline of "The Upside of Anger," but in addition to the missing husband and deciding what is up with this new man suddenly in her life, Terry has to deal with four daughters. Hadley (Alicia Witt) is about to graduate college and has a double-dose of news for her mother. Andy (Erika Christensen) does not want to go to college and just wants to work, which is also news for Terry. Emily (Keri Russell) is a dancer who wants to go to a small arts college, ideas that Terry disparages. Then there is "Popeye" (Evan Rachel Wood), real name Lavender, who is the narrator of the film in those few instances where we cannot be told a profound thought any other way. It is hard enough for Terry to deal with being an abandoned wife without her daughter's throwing an increasingly frustrating number of new monkey wrenches into her life as well. Consequently, there are moments where the dialogue gives way to inarticulate grunts and a particular memorable death wish daydream at the family dining room table.

I do not have a problem with the conclusion put together by writer-director Mike Binder ("The Sex Monster," "The Search for John Gissing"). Since I have the firm conviction that irony is the master trope of the universe, I appreciate the twist at the end of this one. Furthermore, I think that it underscores the message of the film, a conclusion I reached before I did the extras on this DVD and found out precisely what Binder says is his thesis proposition. Binder wrote the script specifically for Allen, so it is not surprising that her performance is on point, but Costner is equally as good in what is essentially a supporting role (his best moments are when he wins "Popeye" over and kicks down the bathroom door). It is not surprising that the four young actresses basically jumped on board because they wanted to work with Joan Allen (clearly there is a big upside to doing so).

My main complaint with this movie ends up being that it does not have enough deleted scenes. Dealing with what is happening between Terry and Denny is enough without trying to provide equal time to all four of the daughters. After all, it is not like this is adopted from a novel that you can go read after the fact to find out more about the characters. Binder wrote a script and not a novel, so this is all there is and there ain't no more. But I wish there was because it is the complexity of Terry's relationship with her daughters and how they all deal with Denny and the absent father. "The Upside of Anger" feels like it has the depth of a novel, which is a pretty good compliment for a movie of this sort.

Plus, you have to like any writer-director who writes a script in which his leading lady gets to slap him not only around but actually all the way down to the groud. The fact that Binder filmed this story, set in a Detroit suburb, at the Ealing Studios in London, is also impressive. Now the big question is whether the Academy will remember Joan Allen at Oscar time, because she should at least get a nomination out of this one (her performance is certainly better than all five of last year's nominees).

Immersed in the film, and listening to "Shep," Kevin Costner's lecherous producer, hidden behind a scraggly beard, it took me some time to recognize Mike Binder. The director, the star of HBO's funny but short-lived "Mind of the married man," plays as an excellent counterpoint to Costner's well-worn retired jock persona, the drunk with a heart of gold and the hottest mom in town as his neighbor.

This is no chick flick, but it is a tribute to Joan Allen, the star Binder wrote the script to feature. Binder gives her a wonderful role, both troubled and joyous, both wounded and strong, as an abandoned mom surrounded by four beautiful but troubled young women. Clearly, they get it from their mom: their looks, their talents, their neuroses. And you have to like them all, and empathize with them and their plight as Allen finds herself alone in a big house, with no explanation, just the sudden disappearence of her husband, supposedly on the lam with his hot young Nordic secretary.

And you have to ask: Who would give up on Allen? Yes, she is a bit repressed by her upper-class life and her desire to motivate, manage and love her daughters, but she is so lovely, long-limbed and unintentionally charming that you have to ask: Who was this idiot husband? Binder, as Shep, is not much help here. He plays a most unattractive media stereotype, seducing a daughter with an internship and appearing totally clueless as to the scorn he deserves and gets from the mother. Shep's ability to ingratiate himself into this struggling family had to leave Allen asking herself repeatedly: Where did I go wrong? Only we all know, and by the end we confirm, that it is not her fault, and she did nothing wrong.

Costner slowly and not-so-weasily works his way into Allen's new life, balancing his obvious lust for her agaisnt her own anxieties and the disapproving looks of the four concerned daughters. But his method works, and you have to give Costner and Allen credit for re-establing some semblance of a meaningful life in the middle of all of the problems that surround them, from Costner's drinking, to Allen's abandonment, to the trials and tribulations of the four daughters.

The film offers a wonderful, quite unexpected turn at the end. It would be cruel to reveal its nature and even more cruel to criticize it as a little too smarmy. This climax certainly caught me off guard, just as this entire film caught me pleasantly by surprise. Binder wrote Allen a great role; she deserved it, and more. She is a gift left unopened all too long. This is not a classic film, nor is it a truly great film, but it is an enjoyable, admirable one, made all the more rewarding by the recent inability of Hollywood to make and market anything of enduring value.

Having grown up in a house of women, I can relate to the domestic set-up that director Mike Binder has concocted in his film, "The Upside of Anger."
Women have a special world all their own that few men have the opportunity to penetrate unless they've grown up around or spent most of their life with them: more to the point,listened intently to what women have to say and closely observed how they act and react to things.
As Denny (Kevin Costner) says when he has dinner with Terry Wolfmeyer (the radiant Joan Allen) and her four daughters (Kari Russell, Evan Wood, Alicia Wood and Erika Christensen): "I can't get over this....this is all so girly." And he isn't being negative, he is merely pointing out the obvious: women are different than men, and in this situation, because they feel comfortable in front of Denny, these ladies have let their guard down a bit and shown him a little of how the feminine mind operates.
Terry has lost a husband to another woman and she is not one bit happy about it. She is depressed, she is drinking too much, and she is turning inward and shutting out her four daughters: she is in mourning and she doesn't want sympathy, she wants revenge.
Joan Allen has never been more human and funny and her Terry Wolfmeyer is not above pettiness, pouting and acting like a horse's pattootie. She has been a good wife and an even better mother and she, rightly so, feels that she doesn't deserve this betrayal.
Costner here is so far removed from JFK and The Postman or any of his hero roles that he is almost unrecognizable: he's gutty, sloppy and he's always got a can of Bud in his hand. His Denny is someone who has never been without female companionship yet craves the warmth of a family. Think Jack Nicholson in "Terms of Endearment" with a big bleeding heart.
"The Upside of Anger" is too long by at least 10 minutes but nonetheless it is a warm, funny and thoughtful film. Savor its simple pleasures while you can.

"The Upside of Anger" is a very good movie that is unfortunately going to be missed in the theatres by the larger audiences. Directed by Mike Binder on a budget of a mere twelve million dollars (which is meager by the standard of today), "The Upside of Anger" is a film focusing on the character of Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) and her four daughters played by Alicia Witt, Evan Rachel Wood, Keri Russell, and Erika Christenson. At the start of the movie Terry is left by her husband (we never see him on screen) and is left quite bitter towards him. She is also clearly something of an alcoholic. Into her life walks Denny Davies (Kevin Costner), a former ballplayer who also hosts a local radio show but refuses to talk about baseball. Denny and Terry have known each other for years, probably through her husband, but it seems like something changes when he finds out that Terry's husband left. Denny starts coming around more often, but it isn't romantic. Denny drinks too much, too, and they start out as drinking buddies washing their lives away.

Terry's anger (and drinking) is driving her daughters away from her. She says in the movie that she has one daughter that hates her and two or three who are on their way. If Terry is driving the family apart, it is Denny that is holding them together. At first he sort of imposed his way into staying for dinners, but midway through the movie it seems completely natural and the daughters are starting to really like Denny. There is no easy path through the lives of this family, with the illness of one daughter and the anger of the mother, but Denny's good humor somehow keeps this movie from being too dark and gloomy.

The role of Denny has to be one of Kevin Costner's best roles and best performances in years, possibly since 1996's "Tin Cup". He has done some good work since then with "Thirteen Days" and "Open Range", but Denny feels like a signature Costner character with his easy charm and his easy laugh. This is one of his more natural feeling performances and it is one of the reasons why, for a time, people really enjoyed going to a Kevin Costner movie. But this isn't a Kevin Costner movie. It's a great ensemble piece and if anything, it is a Joan Allen movie. If this movie came out in October or November rather than April, there would likely be serious talk about Allen picking up a Best Actress nomination. It would be warranted. She plays the role here very well and doesn't take Terry too far past the line we would lose any sympathy for her. Besides the two leads, all four women who play the daughters also do as good of a job as possible in their limited roles.

In fact, the only negative that I can find is Mike Binder himself. Not as a director, but as an actor. Binder plays the role of Denny's radio producer Shep and Shep is an overly irritating, disgusting, piggish character. Perhaps it is just about right because it gives more conflict to the family, but it just felt a little out of place and a little over the top. But even that doesn't detract too much from the movie and I really loved this movie. If I hadn't heard about this movie for several weeks I would call it one of those nice little discoveries a person finds at the movie theatre (or on DVD) from time to time. It's quite good and I wouldn't be surprised if it holds up to be one of the better movies of the year.

Grade: A-

-Joe Sherry

Mike Binder both wrote and directed this searingly important film; important for its concept, for its ensemble acting, and for performances by Joan Allen and Kevin Costner that are now the gold standard for the year by which all other award quality performances must be judged.

Anger, and how it paralyzes our emotional outlook and alters our perception of reality and works to destroy those around us, is the harsh subject of this examination of a well-to-do family of husband, wife and four teenage daughters. The story is narrated by the youngest daughter Lavender 'Popeye' Wolfmeyer (Evan Rachel Wood) and never were the words 'out of the mouth of babes' so pertinent. The mother Terry (Joan Allen) is introduced drunk, constantly in her nightgown with glass of vodka in hand, and she pretty has spent her days in that manner since her husband Grey 'left her with his 22-year-old Swedish office girl' without a note, a call, or confrontation with his family. Terry is consumed with anger, self pity, loathing, and barely manages to maintain a household, completely relying on her four daughters to cook, clean, shop, etc while she finds reasons to berate them for every act and motivation the girls show. Hadley (Alicia Witt) is the oldest and enamored with a boy Terry considers a waste of time. Andy (Erica Christensen) doesn't want to go to college but to become a reporter instead - a fact Terry refuses to consider. Emily (Keri Russell) prefers to follow her dream of becoming a ballet dancer and attending an Arts College that, of course, Terry refuses to allow. Popeye, the youngest, is hungry for belonging and wants desperately to be noticed by not only her mother but by boys, etc.

A neighbor Denny Davies (Kevin Costner) is an alcoholic ex-baseball hero who now has a cheesy but popular radio talk show produced by his buddy Shep (Mike Binder, yes, the writer/director!). Denny has been friends of the Wolfmeyers for years and shows up drunk, warmly offering himself as a drinking partner to Terry. The two spend their time drinking and watching television and watching the daughters each arrive at crises: Hadley gets pregnant and announces her engagement to Terry after everyone else knows: rage from Terry and an embarrassing scene at Hadley's announcement dinner. Andy gets a job at Denny's radio show only to fall into bed with the lothario Shep: rage and a public fight from Terry. Emily somaticizes her career frustration and ends up in a hospital with an ulcer: self-pity and depression from Terry. Denny slowly works his way into Terry's bed and become a surrogate father/lover to these five father/husband-deserted women. The ending is a shocker and cannot be revealed because it would destroy the fine story line of the film. But it begins as it ends and that is the part that leaves the audience aghast that they didn't suspect that turn of event.

Binder's script and direction achieve the impossible: he is able to create a family in disarray, deal with every aspect of anger, desertion, family ties, mother/daughter love (though severely tested), the needs of the 'victim' and how they can be tended. Amazingly he does this with a large does of comedy, acerbic dialogue, restrained responses, and a keen grasp of reality that makes this a film about a tough subject one that is engrossing and never off-putting.

The entire cast is pitch perfect: each of the actors who portray the daughters is exceptional. But the brilliance that radiates from the screen is the triumphant performance by Joan Allen. She inhabits Terry and despite the fact that she has every reason to make us loathe her character, she manages to keep her portrayal so sensitively nuanced that we stay close to her in this journey. She is simply amazing in her body language, her understanding of alcoholic behavior patterns, and her internalization of her needs at the expense of her ever-surfacing rage. Much the same can be said for Kevin Costner who gives the finest performance of his career in a role that could be pathetic and negative in the hands of a less capable actor. His comedic talents shine, but not at the expense of his enormous sensitivity to the five women with whom he ends up living.

Alexandre Desplat has once again created a movie score that has perfectly beautiful passages of music while always underlining the story appropriately. The cinematography by Richard Greatrex finds the perfect vantages that seem like windows in the hearts of each of the participants in the story. Highly Recommended.
Grady Harp, April 05

Love, love, love this movie. I saw it in the theater just after my husband moved out. I had no idea what it was about, I picked it for the stars. It proved to be better than therapy, I now own the DVD...now if I could only have Kevin Costner for my drinking buddy.

Joan Allen's riveting yet restrained performance lends a big assist to this dramedy about social and subruban manners circa 2005. Allen plays protagonist to Kevin Costner's antagonist in this film about divorce, bitterness, alcoholism, readjusted family life and, finally, great surprise.

Allen plays affluent suburbanite Terry Wolfmeyer who takes to drinking and bitterness when her husband leaves home, seemingly on a permanent basis, for what she thinks is his secretary. She soons develops a friendship with neighobr Denny Davies (Kostner), a washed up old ball player) who likes to drink and has a radio talk show in Detroit. Their friendship moves in a predicatble direction that keeps the plot from being as interesting as Allen's wonderful performance.

The film is greatly abetted by actresses playing Allen's four daughters -- Alicia Witt, Keri Russell, Erika Christensen and Evan Rachel Wood -- two of whom are out of high school and two still carrying out late adolescence. The girls' lives are also very interesting and help the viewer stay connected with the enveloping emotions of the film.

This movie won no awards but was more interesting and rewarding than a lot of Oscar winning and nominated flicks I've seen in recent years. There is affect from "American Beauty", "Ordinary People" and "Terms of Endearment", Oscar winners to which this film readily compares. It is also more interesting and less cliche-ridden than either "Mystic River" or "Sideways".

I think this movie would have interest for just about anyone that likes watching great multilayered acting, beautiful people, subtle comedy and/or contemporary American drama.

I must admit that when I bought this film, I was expecting the storyline to follow the same, stale, husband-done-me-wrong plot. It was Joan Allen that eventually forced me to whip out the checkbook. And so, I was incredibly surprised to find this to be a movie of such depth.

First of all, as practically all reviewers have raved, Allen and Costner are phenomenal. It was mid-way through the film that I realized how superb the acting was, as they were actually making me fall in love with utterly unlikable characters. Joan Allen has long-since been the most underappreciated actress in Hollywood. It was hard for me to watch Julia Roberts walk away with her 2001 Oscar for the lackluster "Erin Brockovich," while Ms. Allen's amazingly convincing performance in "The Contender" went without even a nod. As for the coming award season, yes Charlize Theron was wonderful in "North Country," and I'm sure that Reese Witherspoon will be lovely in "Walk the Line" (or at least I think I'm sure), but come on people, Joan Allen's moment to shine is years past due. But Ms. Allen doesn't carry this film on her own. As stated earlier, Kevin Costner is amazing. I liked his performance in this film more than any of his previous roles. Yes, he has a heart for sweeping epics, and yes "Dances with Wolves" was a great film, but to see him so subdued, and really capturing the essence of this man he was portraying was truly enjoyable to watch. He has reinvented his career.

And finally, all of the whining about the plot redirecting its aim. I honestly don't understand all of the problems so many people seem to have with this. To me, it only made the film all the more enjoyable, proving that in that end, perhaps the only champion to anger is divine irony. Life, fairly often, will throw both at you.

This is a great film and highly recommended on my part.