You Can Count On Me (2000)

This was one of those rare situations, where i'd heard good things- award noms and such- but didn't really know what this film was about.
Only that it featured Laura Linney and a Mark 'The Ruffley Buffalo' Ruffalo...


It's kinda hard for me to write about this film based on non-expectations but lets compare it with the bummy, Lonesome Jim since there are similarities:- both are centred on loners coming 'home' but You Can Count on Me is good. Lonesome Jim - mmmeh.
Laura Linney and The Ruffalo play brother and sister, Ruffalo returning to spend time in the rural upstate New York town he grew to stay with his bank supervisor sister that's never left. We don't know why exactly but we know he's coming back to borrow money. We know she's excited because she places family highly because they were orphaned at a young age. So yeah this isn't going to be any great yarn, just a moderately quiet drama about these two different people.
If the film has a discernable thread, i'd say it was about these 2 people  exploring catharsis in their lives in different ways. The Laura Linney character vicariously has these non-committal relationships with men. The Ruffalo's character is just obstinate and can't help but do the opposite of the right thing. Not that he is trying to do wrong but needs to make mistakes before he'll learn-sometimes his decisions seem like he makes them just to see how they'll play out...
They both do. The unconscious decisions they make have no positive outcome.
Matthew Broderick has great against-type role here as, 'a bit of a prick.' First, he was Bueller (who probably was a fair slice of prick incidentally) then he settled into 'pleasant bumbling dink', but here it's kinda nice to see him being 'a toxic middle-management arse-biscuit'. 

It's like his career is going from playing insolent to indolent to impotent.

Linney is pretty good here but it's the kinda role middle aged actresses do all the time and there's nothing particularly surprising on show here. She's really good- that's plain to see.
This however was the role that really kicked off Mark Ruffalo's career and maybe because it's a complex character, maybe Ruffalo knew it was a good canvas to play with as an actor- he's just doing sterling work. He's just a character with a lot of fight in him but nothing to fight against; someone who's still carrying his teenage rebellion into his late 20's. I think the hallmark of great acting sometimes is recognition, in the sense of relating to or if you can't relate, recognising that character in people you know and i felt like i knew many people like Ruffalo in this movie.
The writing... I have an obtuse 'beef' with the writing. Now, the writer/ director Kenneth Lonergan is a very prolific NY playwrite and for a 'human drama', i think there a good story here but i think it's weird that the dialogue here is... not great. I guess it's me but i just expected more punchy dialogue from a playwrite is all. He did get an Oscar nom. It's me.


I watched You Can Count On Me (2000), on DVD via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Thirst (2009)...