Robert Redford was, during the early part of his career in the sixties and early seventies, one of the last traditional Western heroes, starring in films like "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "Jeremiah Johnson". This element of his filmography has become less prominent since the decline of the traditional Western set in from the late seventies onwards. Nevertheless, as a resident of the West himself, Redford has been reluctant to sever his connection with the genre altogether, and has continued to make films with a Western setting, both as an actor and as a director. Most of these films, however, like "The Electric Horseman", "A River Runs though It" or "The Horse Whisperer" have been set in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries rather than the nineteenth.
"An Unfinished Life", is another film of this nature. It is the tale of an ageing rancher named Einar Gilkyson and his relationship with his estranged daughter-in-law Jean, who unexpectedly shows up on his doorstep with her daughter Griff (named after her father who died before she was born). Einar never approved of his son Griffin's marriage to Jean, and he has not seen her since Griffin's death in a car accident some years ago. Their relationship remains very strained, especially since both are suffering from psychological guilt feelings- Jean because she was driving the car in which Griffin died, Einar because of an incident in which he was too drunk to save his best friend Mitch from serious injury in an attack by a bear. We learn that Jean has only come to live with Einar because she is fleeing from an abusive and violent boyfriend.
Provided we are familiar with the conventions of family dramas like this one, we know fairly early on- roughly speaking- how the story will pan out. We know that it will involve the healing of emotional wounds, that Einar and Jean will gradually learn to forgive one another, that the outwardly gruff and curmudgeonly Einar will turn out to be human, that he and Mitch (who now lives with him) will become the father-figures that young Griff never had, that Jean will eventually learn to stand up to her bullying boyfriend and find true love with a good man. Even the bear will have a part to play in these developments.
This predictability has been seen as a fault, and I would agree that the film is not as good as, say, "Ordinary People", Redford's first film as director. That is another psychological drama dealing with the traumas suffered by a family following the death of a son in an accident but one which does not provide such a neat solution to everyone's problems. "An Unfinished Life" is, however, in many ways a film worth watching. It is not as sentimental as I feared it might be, given that it was directed by that high priest of sentimentality, Lasse Hallström. I certainly enjoyed it more than other Hallström offerings such as "Chocolat" or "The Cider House Rules", in both of which he offers up the same unappetising mixture of treacly sentiment, cloyingly luscious photography and banal philosophising.
One difference is that here Hallström can call upon some excellent acting, whereas there are no good performances in "Chocolat", despite some big star names in the cast, and only one (from Michael Caine) in "The Cider House Rules". Although Robert Redford is today not quite the household name that he was thirty or forty years ago, this movie shows that he, like Clint Eastwood, is capable of adapting to "older man" roles very different from the sort of heart-throbs or action heroes that he played in the early part of his career. Einar, a grumpy old man with a good heart, may be something of a cliché in modern family dramas, but he plays the part so well that we can forgive any lack of originality. As one might expect, he receives good support from the generally reliable Morgan Freeman as Mitch.
Perhaps more unexpectedly, he also receives good support from Jennifer Lopez as Jean. It is fair to say that J-Lo has not always been my favourite actress after seeing her in turkeys like "Enough" (in which she also plays a victim of domestic violence) and "Anaconda" which falls firmly into the "so bad it's funny" category. She can, however, occasionally come up with a decent performance; "Angel Eyes" is one example, and this film another. In her other incarnation as a singer Lopez projects an image of someone confident, extrovert and outgoing, so it is surprising that her best performances as an actress have come in films which call for more subtle emotions or where she is called on to play a quieter, more introverted character like the guilt-haunted Jean.
"An Unfinished Life" may be a familiar story, but it is well told and well acted with some attractive shots of the mountain scenery (actually in British Columbia although the film is supposedly set in Wyoming). 7/10
"An Unfinished Life", is another film of this nature. It is the tale of an ageing rancher named Einar Gilkyson and his relationship with his estranged daughter-in-law Jean, who unexpectedly shows up on his doorstep with her daughter Griff (named after her father who died before she was born). Einar never approved of his son Griffin's marriage to Jean, and he has not seen her since Griffin's death in a car accident some years ago. Their relationship remains very strained, especially since both are suffering from psychological guilt feelings- Jean because she was driving the car in which Griffin died, Einar because of an incident in which he was too drunk to save his best friend Mitch from serious injury in an attack by a bear. We learn that Jean has only come to live with Einar because she is fleeing from an abusive and violent boyfriend.
Provided we are familiar with the conventions of family dramas like this one, we know fairly early on- roughly speaking- how the story will pan out. We know that it will involve the healing of emotional wounds, that Einar and Jean will gradually learn to forgive one another, that the outwardly gruff and curmudgeonly Einar will turn out to be human, that he and Mitch (who now lives with him) will become the father-figures that young Griff never had, that Jean will eventually learn to stand up to her bullying boyfriend and find true love with a good man. Even the bear will have a part to play in these developments.
This predictability has been seen as a fault, and I would agree that the film is not as good as, say, "Ordinary People", Redford's first film as director. That is another psychological drama dealing with the traumas suffered by a family following the death of a son in an accident but one which does not provide such a neat solution to everyone's problems. "An Unfinished Life" is, however, in many ways a film worth watching. It is not as sentimental as I feared it might be, given that it was directed by that high priest of sentimentality, Lasse Hallström. I certainly enjoyed it more than other Hallström offerings such as "Chocolat" or "The Cider House Rules", in both of which he offers up the same unappetising mixture of treacly sentiment, cloyingly luscious photography and banal philosophising.
One difference is that here Hallström can call upon some excellent acting, whereas there are no good performances in "Chocolat", despite some big star names in the cast, and only one (from Michael Caine) in "The Cider House Rules". Although Robert Redford is today not quite the household name that he was thirty or forty years ago, this movie shows that he, like Clint Eastwood, is capable of adapting to "older man" roles very different from the sort of heart-throbs or action heroes that he played in the early part of his career. Einar, a grumpy old man with a good heart, may be something of a cliché in modern family dramas, but he plays the part so well that we can forgive any lack of originality. As one might expect, he receives good support from the generally reliable Morgan Freeman as Mitch.
Perhaps more unexpectedly, he also receives good support from Jennifer Lopez as Jean. It is fair to say that J-Lo has not always been my favourite actress after seeing her in turkeys like "Enough" (in which she also plays a victim of domestic violence) and "Anaconda" which falls firmly into the "so bad it's funny" category. She can, however, occasionally come up with a decent performance; "Angel Eyes" is one example, and this film another. In her other incarnation as a singer Lopez projects an image of someone confident, extrovert and outgoing, so it is surprising that her best performances as an actress have come in films which call for more subtle emotions or where she is called on to play a quieter, more introverted character like the guilt-haunted Jean.
"An Unfinished Life" may be a familiar story, but it is well told and well acted with some attractive shots of the mountain scenery (actually in British Columbia although the film is supposedly set in Wyoming). 7/10