All Good Things (2010)
Here's a story that was dramatic in life and equally dramatic on paper, as a story pitch. What wouldn't sound thrilling, in Hollywood terms, about a latent psychopath of a man, his aging older power hungry father, and a charming young innocent woman caught up in a struggle for happiness and wealth? And so "All Good Things" had all the right things to get going.
On top of that, the three actors are all excellent in their own ways, Ryan Gosling, Frank Langella, and Kirsten Dunst, respectively. What falters is something more subtle, some combination of screen writing (that magic of turning an idea into something concrete) and direction (that hard technical and aesthetic work of pulling it all off). It turns out that the screenwriters are both first timers, and the director has one other film to his credit, so there is a sense of still figuring things out that is evident here. The movie lacks elegance, for sure, though it doesn't lack intensity at times, using well-worn but necessary tricks (girl arrives at night into dark room and man is waiting in shadows for her, etc.).
Not that this is a bad movie. The story itself grows and multiplies even as the characters remain somewhat thin. The one character who get complicated is the leading man, Gosling's David Marks, the troubled son who knows he's troubled and tries to hide it and eventually cannot.
You can ask of course deep questions about why this man turned so rotten, and the answer the film provides is that his father pushed him relentlessly in a dirty business rife with secrecy and power. That he didn't find salvation in the "perfect" Kirsten Dunst (who was never demanding, always supportive and loving, etc., to the point of simplicity) is part of his own tragedy. Ultimately this is a simple story about guy who, as his father said to his face, was a "weak man." And if this is a movie about a weak man being trapped by circumstances and therefore given a license to violence, it doesn't reveal or express those qualities in ways that would sway or disturb us. We are mostly reminded that it really happened, and that the guy is still out there, down South, selling real estate.
Here's a story that was dramatic in life and equally dramatic on paper, as a story pitch. What wouldn't sound thrilling, in Hollywood terms, about a latent psychopath of a man, his aging older power hungry father, and a charming young innocent woman caught up in a struggle for happiness and wealth? And so "All Good Things" had all the right things to get going.
On top of that, the three actors are all excellent in their own ways, Ryan Gosling, Frank Langella, and Kirsten Dunst, respectively. What falters is something more subtle, some combination of screen writing (that magic of turning an idea into something concrete) and direction (that hard technical and aesthetic work of pulling it all off). It turns out that the screenwriters are both first timers, and the director has one other film to his credit, so there is a sense of still figuring things out that is evident here. The movie lacks elegance, for sure, though it doesn't lack intensity at times, using well-worn but necessary tricks (girl arrives at night into dark room and man is waiting in shadows for her, etc.).
Not that this is a bad movie. The story itself grows and multiplies even as the characters remain somewhat thin. The one character who get complicated is the leading man, Gosling's David Marks, the troubled son who knows he's troubled and tries to hide it and eventually cannot.
You can ask of course deep questions about why this man turned so rotten, and the answer the film provides is that his father pushed him relentlessly in a dirty business rife with secrecy and power. That he didn't find salvation in the "perfect" Kirsten Dunst (who was never demanding, always supportive and loving, etc., to the point of simplicity) is part of his own tragedy. Ultimately this is a simple story about guy who, as his father said to his face, was a "weak man." And if this is a movie about a weak man being trapped by circumstances and therefore given a license to violence, it doesn't reveal or express those qualities in ways that would sway or disturb us. We are mostly reminded that it really happened, and that the guy is still out there, down South, selling real estate.