Everybody's Fine

Genre : DVD ( DVD )
Release : 2010/02/23
Price : $22.49

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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)

Once again - anything with DeNiro in, has to be good - this film tugs at every heartstring, the acting is superb by everyone, the script is faultless and the storyline must be familiar to so many families everywhere. For some people to criticise this movie as not funny etc etc - it was'nt meant to be ! Anyone who did'nt feel familar with the storyline and their own life & family & bring not one one but multiple tears to the eye - must have had a very sad & loveless upbringing.

This was advertised as a comedy, easy going film, about a Dad traveling to go see his kids, but it turned out to be a SAD and DEPRESSING movie. If it was advertised for what it really was, I would not have picked this movie. SAD.

This was a pretty good movie. De Niro was very good. Except for the airplane I thought the travel scenes dragged out too long.

This movie wasn't what I expected. I thought I was buying a Christmas movie but it wasn't. Robert De Niro was great but the movie isn't happy. All in all it's a good movie but it left me feeling sad.

This movie is really very good. It's not funny, yet has some light moments. I liked how the story unfolds, and is almost a mystery about what is really going on. This is a well made film, with a great cast. I bought the DVD used, and was not disappointed in any way. I would recommend this movie.