The Upside of Anger | | Cast : | Joan Allen, Kevin Costner, Erika Christensen, Evan Rachel Wood, Keri Russell, Alicia Witt | | Director : | Mike Binder | | Studio : | New Line Home Entertainment | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | , 2005 | | DVD Released Date : | July 26, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 13, 2005 | | Summary | Perfect for the newly single woman!!! | Content
 | Love, love, love this movie. I saw it in the theater just after my husband moved out. I had no idea what it was about, I picked it for the stars. It proved to be better than therapy, I now own the DVD...now if I could only have Kevin Costner for my drinking buddy. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 11, 2005 | | Summary | Black Comedy or Poignant Drama? In Any Case, It's Always Smart. | Content
| Terry Wolfmeyer was, in her daughter's words, the "sweetest, nicest, woman that anyone who knew her ever knew". That is, until her husband ran off with his secretary leaving her with 4 cheeky daughters, a lovely suburban Detroit home, and a lot of self-pity. "Then things changed. And she changed. She got angry. Good and angry." Terry (Joan Allen) turns herself into an embittered lush and has an affair with an equally drunk neighbor Denny Davies (Kevin Costner). Denny's an affable, easy-going ex-pro baseball player who trades on his former glory to make a living. Terry is of the opposite temperament: controlling, intense, and self-important, so they make quite a pair. Preoccupied with her husband's rejection and using her victimhood to excuse all manner of outrageous behavior, Terry still finds time to be appalled by her eldest daughter Hadley's (Alicia Witt) marriage, her ballet dancer daughter Emily's (Keri Russell) choice of career, and other daughter Andy's (Erika Christensen) boyfriend. Only the youngest of the family, Popeye (Evan Rachel Wood), escapes her venom.
The key to enjoying "The Upside of Anger" is to understand that it is a black comedy. The film's fault is that that is not obvious. The humor in Terry's behavior is clear, but it's always played straight, which sometimes makes it difficult to know if we are watching a comedy or a tragedy. The film's tone is inscrutable. It has a sense of humor, but at the same time is consumed by Terry's anger. Terry seems to have everything in the world except a husband, whom she apparently didn't love anyway. Her life is remarkably unchanged by his abandonment. Yet she never ceases to feel sorry for herself, and she tries to keep such a tight reign on everyone around her that we feel she might crack. Terry is sympathetic only up to a point. Fortunately, writer/director Mike Binder sensed the limit of our sympathy and made the characters act accordingly.
Even if we're unsure of how we should take Terry Wolfmeyer, this is one of Joan Allen's most memorable performances, and that's saying a lot. Terry is overbearing, seems to resent her daughters' happiness and successes, and goes out of her way to find something to criticize. But she is cognizant of her own foibles. She is also possessed of a fierce love for her children, even if they wish they saw more of the love and less of the fierce. All of the characters are self-aware and refreshingly forthright. Mike Binder has written a smart film with impressively sharp dialogue. -And he is fantastically funny in the role of Andie's lecherous older boyfriend Shep. Like Terry, Shep is a alternately sympathetic/repulsive/hilarious character who is, nonetheless, blunt and insightful no matter what he does. Denny Davies is Kevin Costner's best role in years, a tolerant, caring, slacker-ish neighbor who is brighter than he seems. Denny and Terry's boozy relationship is certainly entertaining and gives the film an element of romantic comedy. The audience can choose to take "The Upside of Anger" as seriously or as lightly as it wants. The film's greatest strength may be in the fact that it is simultaneously very funny and very true. But it's never dumb.
The DVD (New Line 2005): Bonus features include a theatrical trailer, 8 deleted scenes, a DVD-ROM (Windows only), a making-of documentary, and an audio commentary. "Creating the Upside of Anger" (27 minutes) features interviews with the cast, producers, and writer/director/actor Mike Binder. Binder discusses writing the film for Joan Allen and getting it made. Actors discuss each other, characters, and filming. There is some information on Mike Binder's career. This documentary should have been edited down, but there is some interesting info. The audio commentary is by Mike Binder and Joan Allen, moderated by Rod Lurie. It starts off as a prolonged mutual admiration society but does eventually move on to discuss characters, themes, and talk a great deal about decisions in writing the film. Binder does at one point address the comedy-drama genre confusion. Subtitles are available for the film in English and Spanish. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 11, 2005 | | Summary | Almost painful to watch | Content
| This film was not lacking for big screen stars, but the stars seemed to be ill-suited, and the plot too contrived. Joan Allen plays Terry, a vodka-imbibing mother and wife who is convinced that her husband left her without a word for his Swedish secretary. There is no explanation why she would be so deadset that this is where her husband is, and no effort on her part to look for him - other than in Sweden via the Internet and directory assistance. She is a bitter, resentful woman who is determined to vent her anger on her daughters and anyone else with whom she comes in contact. The daughters have to deal with her irritating behavior, and when Kevin Costner (his name in the movie escapes me) comes into the picture he has to put up with her as well until he finally can't take it anymore. Though I also found myself wondering what she saw in him - a paunchy, graying former baseball player, now radio commentator. Kudos to Kevin Costner for letting himself look so disheveled and realistic on screen!
The movie has one funny moment, but I can't recall what it was.
In general, it is by no means a crowd-pleaser. It's one of those movies you sit through to see if it has some redeeming qualities.
In the end, of course it all comes together in one neat little package and everything is once again right with the world.
Hmmmmmm...... |
| Rating | | | Date | August 09, 2005 | | Summary | Good, real drama | Content
| This is an effective drama about a woman who, convinced her husband has left her and her four daughters, becomes invovled with a former baseball player who now hosts a radio show. Really, though, it's more about anger and one character's dealing with anger and her effect on those around her. The movie is not over the top in anyway, but instead discusses real issues successfully.
Joan Allen performs excellently as the mother--she becomes a multi-dimensional character, not a 2-D stereotype. Kevin Costner is not as likeable, but performs his part well. The ensemble cast of the four daughters is not bad either. The script is a perfect vehicle for the drama, but the talent is in the acting.
Not to be missed. A joy to know that Hollywood can have fantastic stories that are well-executed, yet grounded in reality. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 07, 2005 | | Summary | Another Unmarried Woman, More Furious with a Stellar Allen and Costner | Content
| Showing dimensions she has not been allowed to display before onscreen, Joan Allen gives a fearless and fiercely comic performance as Terry Wolfmeyer, a suburban Detroit wife and mother of four daughters who apparently has been abandoned by her philandering husband. Director and screenwriter (as well as former stand-up comic) Mike Binder - who worked with Allen on 2000's "The Contender" playing her chief-of-staff - provides Allen with quite an explosive, warts-and-all showcase for her considerable acting prowess in this spirited 2005 comedy-drama.
The plot seems to be an amalgam of Paul Mazursky's 1978 breakthrough "An Unmarried Woman", a reverse-angle take on Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", and the quirky, ironic sensibilities of Sam Mendes' "American Beauty". However, the themes that Binder espouses are intriguing in that he explores the unremitting torrent of anger one woman feels toward life when she discovers one day that her husband is gone. As Terry deals with her anger through alcoholic binges and canoodling with Denny, the retired pro baseball neighbor, she emotionally abandons her four daughters against her best efforts.
Played by Alicia Witt, oldest daughter Hadley just graduated college and becomes pregnant by an affable rich boy whom Terry describes as "not intelligent". Former "Felicity" star Keri Russell portrays aspiring ballet dancer Emily, who becomes anorexic and almost as angry as Terry. Evan Rachel Wood, superb in "Thirteen", plays youngest daughter "Popeye" (nicknamed for no explained reason), who provides the narration at the beginning and end through a class video project, while experimenting with drugs and developing a crush on a gay classmate. Rebellious Andy, portrayed by Erika Christensen, decides to get a job as a radio station production assistant rather than going to college. In the most nonchalant manner, she ends up sleeping with Shep Goodman, the sleazy producer who happens to be played by Binder. All four up-and-coming actresses are terrific within the confines of their roles.
However, I have to hand the prize to Kevin Costner, who seems finally freed of the self-absorbed heroic roles he has been playing. In what has to be his most insightful performance since 1988's "Bull Durham", Costner plays Denny with an élan he hasn't displayed in years. It is another baseball player role, but he infuses such humor, resignation and naked emotion into his gone-to-seed character, now a perpetually stoned disc jockey who patiently waits for Terry to see the "upside of anger", that sense of calm one feels in the end after all of the rage has been released. He does have a great moment when he kicks Terry's bathroom door down - rather than a romantic gesture, it summarizes the years of frustration in dealing with her paranoia and bitterness.
I also appreciate how Binder realistically treats their mutual alcoholism as a way of life rather than a TV-movie disease eating away at them. There are certain times when the movie does veer toward triteness, and Binder likes to use fantasy sequences to express unspoken feelings - such as when Shep's head explodes at the dinner table to Terry's satisfaction - which are effective though a little too convenient for my taste. While not in the league of "The Sixth Sense", the much-discussed twist ending really makes the film more a parable about the futility of anger. It's a creative move by Binder, though it obviously prevents him from exploring the true upside of anger since it would mean explaining some story lapses.
Nonetheless, this is Allen's show and she is amazing - whether collecting her husband's belonging with fury much like Jill Clayburgh did in "An Unmarried Woman", reacting with silent disgust as she catches Andy and Shep in bed, spooning hesitantly with Denny, ordering another Bloody Mary in front of her prospective in-laws or decking Shep twice at Hadley's wedding. The DVD includes the standard ingredients - eight deleted scenes that were understandably excised, a rather lengthy making-of featurette at over thirty minutes (although I was amazed to discover most of the film was shot in London to keep down costs), and an alternate audio commentary track by Allen and Binder, which is alternately insightful and self-congratulatory. There are also some DVD-ROM features like the shooting script. |
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