Everybody's Fine
I watched this movie the other night called Everybody’s Fine. It starred the great Robert De Niro.Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell as the children. It was quite an unusual movie and I say that because I have never seen Robert De Niro in this type of role before, where he showed so much emotion. He is amazing in every movie that he is in and this movie wasn’t any different, he did not disappoint.
The premise of the movie is that De Niro plays a widower named Frank Goode and he is trying to get his children together for a reunion for the first time since his wife died. He goes all out and buys a huge dinner and cleans the house and prepares for his much anticipated visit with his grown children. What happens next is that one after another his children start to call him and tell him that they cannot make the visit for one reason or another. They all have excuses for not coming and I think deep down he knows that something is up.
He decides that although he isn’t in great health and against his doctor’s wishes, he sets out to visit his children without telling them, he wants to surprise them. His thinking is if they wont come to him then he will go to them. So he sets out on an adventure of sorts visiting his children one by one and slowly realizing that they are not all that happy to see him. Imagine sitting at home not expecting any visitors and your parents are at the front door unexpectedly before you have had your morning coffee. These are the expressions on his children’s faces as he pays them a visit. But there is reason for this, and at the risk of giving too much away, I will not reveal why they act like this but I will say that it has something to do with complications with one of the children, and they are trying to keep this information away from their father.
Now when his wife was alive she was the one that kept the family together. She was the one that all the children went to with their problems and because Frank was kind of tough on his kids, especially his boys, he was unapproachable and therefore they went to the mother and often she kept things from her husband. Needless to say there was much that Frank didn’t know about his own children and was appalled to find out many truths.
My verdict for this movie is that it is a must see movie if you are a Robert De Niro fan because clearly he makes this movie work. It is kind of a movie that is almost, dark, almost comedy and somewhere in between there is some drama. I loved this movie, I cried at least three times throughout and I am not a big baby when it comes to flicks, but there is something about Robert De Niro crying that I would defy anyone from being affected. Critics were not that kind to this movie and most of my sisters do not listen to me when I say a movie is good (unless a movie has Gerald Butler in it, one of my sisters refuses to see it). But this is my hub and this is my opinion so you can take it for what it is and agree with me or not but in my opinion I give it at least 4 stars.
The saddest part of this movie to me was the realization that kids keep so much from their parents and then they wonder why parents worry. I was reminded of this the last time I spoke with my daughter who is getting ready to go on a cruise with her boyfriend. When we spoke on the phone I asked her if she needed anything, and she said, “everything is fine”. The last time I spoke with my son he said the same thing. I know they are fine, but it still made me cringe a little because I so know how children keep things from their parents only because they do not want them to worry or they don’t want to get into a deep discussion about something painful. See the movie.
