Everything Must Go

“You should get some curtains”

 

Dan Rush's film based on the very-short short story 'Why Don't You Dance?' by Raymond Carver is a languid, minimalist piece of work.  Will Ferrell plays Nick Halsey, a sales executive who, after falling off the wagon, loses his job and returns home to find all of his possessions on his front lawn, his wife gone and the locks changed.

 

Reading the LFF programme notes and seeing the accompanying picture I had expected a rather different film.  Sharper, less melancholy perhaps.  But the depiction of Nick's rejection and attempted recovery is very like the character himself.  Nick is no belligerent drunk; he is peaceful and patient with an internal sadness that says more than his words ever could.  His burgeoning friendships with a new neighbour and a lonely kid are beautifully realized; awkward and tender in equal measures.

Rebecca Hall is radiant as the sympathetic (to a point) neighbour.  Rush claims that she was the cast member they chased the hardest and you can see why.  She is the character with the most in common with Nick; both of them leading lives they didn’t exactly expect, and I was impressed with the dignity of her portrayal.  Laura Dern is also excellent in her brief appearance.  The only real weak spot for me was the performance of Michael Pena.  He seems entirely miscast as Nick’s AA sponsor and I found his storyline to be intrusive to the feeling of the piece as a whole.

The script is sparse, Rush preferring to engage the audience with silent reactions and long moments of quiet reflection.  He explained in the Q&A that he is not keen to give his audience much in the way of spoken explanation so that they can interpret the picture through their own experiences and I think it works in the film’s favour.  It draws you into Nick’s world and makes it strangely familiar, maybe even comfortable.  David Torn’s beautiful (I’ll admit it – I’m a huge fan) but not over-used score and Michael Barrett’s intimate and warm cinematography adds to this.

 

Essentially Rush has made my kind of film.  As with the likes of Lars and the Real Girl, Everything Must Go moves at a pace which allows the audience time to empathise with its characters and therefore get more of an emotional connection with the events on screen.  It is intimate, warm and minimal and I hope it gets a good audience – it deserves one.

 

8/10