You Can Count On Me may look like it belongs on the small screen, but the movie surprises with its simple yet affecting story. Beautifully acted and crafted, the movie will simply draw you in.
You Can Count On Me may look like it belongs on the small screen, but the movie surprises with its simple yet affecting story. Beautifully acted and crafted, the movie will simply draw you in.
Kenneth Lonergan, the co-screenwriter for Analyze This (1999), makes his directorial debut with this sensitive portrait of a pair of grown siblings. Sammy and Terry Prescott (Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo) were orphaned as children after their parents were killed in a car accident. Since then, the two have taken drastically divergent paths. Sammy is a single mother who leads a quiet, stable life in a small town in upstate New York. A fiercely protective mother, she shields her young son Rudy
(Rory Culkin) from all information about his absentee father. She is also involved with Bob (Jon Tenney), a well-meaning but less-than-exciting mate, both in and out of bed. Terry, by contrast, is a troubled, self-destructive soul eking out a nomadic existence. When he abandons his pregnant girlfriend to borrow money from his sister, Sammy finds her stable world disrupted. A bond soon develops between Terry and Rudy; over the objections of his mother, Terry takes the tyke fishing and shares old family secrets. Meanwhile, Terry's presence inspires Sammy to break out of her quiet life. This film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
A score of Bach's unaccompanied cello suites befits siblings accustomed to solitude - passages of mourning and joy given life by characters with proper proportions of antagonism and affection. Unresolved yet complete, it's about replacing fear with truth.
The lead characters are extremely well played by Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo. Yet above all it is Kenneth Lonergan's writing and direction that left the biggest mark.
Lonergan avoids the faults of many American storytellers by refusing to cast characters in a judgmental light, giving each enough dignity to be convincing and sympathetic.
Crazy that this film is 11 years old. I enjoyed it and it was great to see all these actors in this film. It was touching and real. It's a movie everyday people can relate to; feeling lost in life and still managing to go through everyday finding a way to try and make it better anyway possible.
October 17, 2011
Nani V
Super Reviewer
A troubled traveler lives with his sister, who is a single mom struggling with bad relationships.This is a subtle, deft character study that features strong performances by the two leads. Laura Linney's trademark awkward strength -- exhibited here by her clearing a nightstand, everything crashing to the floor, then
silently wondering if she did it correctly -- is on full display as well as her moments of giddiness, similar to the staircase celebration in Love Actually. Mark Ruffalo plays the troubled rebel well.I did think the film's pacing was too slow at points. And there are some moments in the narration when I wondered if the film had a thematic purpose. It doesn't; we just get to know some people during the film's two hours. An example of the film's stuttered narration: I didn't see the motive for Sammy to bring in the priest to talk to her brother, and the first scene had very little to do with the rest of the film.Overall, it's great to see a good character study, but a well-constructed story following it is missing from this relatively strong film.
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