Everybody’s Fine is an interesting look at family life for a widower but lacks any real plot or enlightening meaning to really make us admire it beyond its performances.
Kirk Jones’ film is a remake of an Italian film of the same name and stars Robert De Niro as said widower, Frank, who decides to spontaneously visit his children who are now spread all around the country after he fails to get them all to visit. As he heads out on to the road we learn that one of his sons, David, is in some sort of trouble in Mexico and his other children shuffle him along to one another keeping the issue a secret from him. David was the first child he visited, who obviously wasn’t home, and then he moves on to Amy, Robert, and Rosie in succession. And that is about the crux of the whole story and nothing much happens along the way leading to a rather dull plot, if you could call it that, to follow.
The most interesting and eventful stop is with his son Robert, who is played by Sam Rockwell, in which Frank gets a cold hard punch of truth when he finds that his son is not the aspiring conductor he was lead to believe by both his wife and Robert. It is hear it really begins to hit home with Frank and us that his kids aren’t entirely truthful and have a fairly poor connection with him.   [Read more...]