MOVIE REVIEW
The Upside Of Anger

I keep fighting the urge to write a long, angry, sad, self pitying post. It may be cathartic to do so, but I don't think it would be a wise thing to do. I know it would come off mean and I am not a mean person, I really don't wish to cause others pain, despite the amount I am feeling at the moment. I may write the post, not likely I would post it though, as I said I have no wish to cause others pain. I know many people read this crap I type, so I try to live my life as though I'm always in the public eye, I try to keep the private, private and have no secrets. More people should live like that - no secrets, no lies, recognize that private is one thing and a secret is another - (private is closing the door when you shower, secret is a girlfiend you never let anyone know about so you can have another girlfriend in public) live your life in the open and you have very few instances when you hurt someone, have to explain yourself or have to appologize. Hmmm... but I'm off track again aren't I? I did say I wouldn't write a long, angry, sad, self pitying post so I'll stop this right here and talk about the movie.

The Upside Of Anger stars Kevin Costner and Joan Allen. Joan Allen carries this movie and is absolutely beautiful doing it - it's hard to fathom that she is 49, she looks amazing. Allen plays a woman who's husband of many years leaves her suddenly presumably to live with his assistant in Sweden. Now had I have know this I might have opted to see the Vin Diesel movie The Pacifier instead. This was probably not the best choice for a woman (me) who's still dealing with being jilted by the man she loves. I cried with her as she tried to understand why she had been left and what she could have done wrong. One scene when she couldn't get out of bed and talked about how she always wanted to kick the wimpy women who whined about being left and then there she was like that, was quite poignant to me - I believe I've felt the exact same. Though the movie is about Terry (Allen's character) dealing with her abandonment, betrayal and lonliness, it's not an hour and a half of her whineing and crying. Her neighbor Denny (played by Costner) befriends her as his drinking buddy and slowly becomes part of her family. The relationships between Terry and her daughters really becomes the central focus of the movie and not her growing relationship with Denny. Which is a good thing because I think it would have been trite to have her fall into a fabulous romance right after being abandoned and would have made her character 2 dimentional. Unfortunately the daughters are the weakest characters in the movie. Keri Russell plays one daughter and despite Russell being a wonderful actress, she wasn't convincing in this movie - I wasn't even convinced she WAS in the movie. The youngest daughter is the only one who does a sterling job and that really is sad. The mother/daughter tension was painful for me to watch, it was very realistic and reminded me of my own mother. It made me wonder if this would be my life in 10 years, two angry teenaged daugters and one bitter angry mother pushing them to succeed because I never had.

The movie is full of tension. Terry is an anguished, angry woman who bristles and snaps at anyone who crosses her in the begining. Denny an ageing lonely baseball hero slowly killing himself with alchohol. They make an unlikely friendship and an even more unlikely coupleling (mercifly there is only one scene of Costner shirtless after their frist romp) who managed to enrich each other's lives. The ending of the movie is pure Hollywood cop-out. It completly nulified the begining of the movie and left me thinking 'No fucking way.'

Though this movie comes off as a comedy in the trailer, I don't think it can be characterized as one, it's more of a drama with some damn funny moments. One of my favorites is at Terry's oldest daughters wedding reception when she confronts her 2nd daughters smarmy, twice her age boyfriend and ends up slapping the hell out of him - not once but twice! It was fabulous and I laughed hardest at that - maybe I enjoyed that one just a wee bit to much, but it was damn funny and he sooooo deserved it. There were many laughs and many tears. This movie isn't really for everyone, infact when we got up to leave I looked around and saw that about half of the people in the theater had left during the movie - I didn't think it was bad enough to leave after paying to get in, but I suppose if you were looking for typical Hollywood fare with easy plots and happy endings, then you wouldn't like this. I wasn't sure I liked the movie last night and after sleeping, I think I did like it - it had sort of complex plot and decent writing - except the ending. ;o) I don't recommend if you've had your heart stomped recently to see the movie, but I do if you have been the one to stomp on a heart recently. ;o)