The Upside of Anger (2005)

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Good concept, poorly executed.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Terry Wolfmeyer gets angry and depressed when husband Grey runs away with his secretary and leaves her with their four daughters. She starts drinking heavily and spending time with alcoholic neighbor Denny, an ex-baseball star with lots of money and not much to do.The four daughters Grumpy, Dancer, Slutty and Stoned accept the news of their father disappearance with nonchalance.Among the movie's many problems: we never see the "lovable and sweet" Terry - as described by daughter Stoned - before Grey's disappearance. We just see her as an angry, unpleasant bitch and as such it is difficult to root for her.In three years, neither Terry nor her daughters ever try to get in touch with Grey. I understand being angry, but some financial/administrative problems must have required Grey to be informed or consulted. If Terry did not want to talk to him – which proves how incredibly immature she is– one of the daughters could have tried. Terry is showed to be a housewife and Grey's supposed to be going bust. Where did they get the money to finance their lavish lifestyle?Not a word is being said about Grey's disappearing with only his wallet and not a single suitcase or any spare clothes. Under normal circumstances, if a member of your family would vanish from one day to the other - after jumping to whatever conclusion - one would probably start to get worried about total lack of contact, but not in this family. Maybe hire a PI? Not the Wolfmeyer....The thin main plot is padded by secondary plots about each of the daughters: Grumpy gets married and pregnant (not in this order), Dancer is sick, Slutty sleeps with her older boss and Stoned gets stoned with a gay guy. Being so busy with their social activities they never exchange ideas about what might have happened to dad.The story wraps up a bit like the virgin suicides in reverse, which proves that bad girls have more fun and good girls top themselves.

******************* SPOILERS *******************This is basically American Beauty 2.0. The gay dude, the unnecessary violence (except in this case it is real), the girl hooking with the older man....This is basically intended for mom's in their 50s who have very little taste for movies. This is story is not worthy of an adaptation, and even more disturbing is what are Allen and Costner doing in this picture.So Costner plays a mediocre plagiarism version of loser Crash Davis, same coat, same baseball player, same attitude in the beginning. Not exactly a well thought out script.Then, this story talks about nothing: it goes back into a flashback, with very little information on what is supposed to be the plot, but it turns out it talks about nothing, only a few sequences of sub plots that have no relation, it's very disorganized, way too tacky and cliché.I'm very disappointed in the outcome: so in the end, did he cheated ? Or did he just got trapped in the well ? What happened all that time ? And we don't even get an explanation, just that, that's where the father ex-husband was for x amount of time. I don't get it, it was the whole point of the movie, cheater abandons his family and there goes the drama: instead, it denies it. It's bland, skimpy, no intrigue, no character worth cheering for.

"The Upside Of Anger" features the most creative stunt casting in film history: Keri Russel, Alicia Witt, Evan Rachel Wood & Erika Christensen are supposed to be sisters.Wowsers! The girls look absolutely nothing alike, not even accidentally. They don't even look like four girls who would be FRIENDS nevermind sisters. But, hey, it's a movie... I can suspend my disbelief.There's enough good things going on here to get past the family tree anyway... love it or hate it this is not a movie you've seen before. It's a completely original story about a recently abandoned wife who turns to drinking and a former baseball star to deal with her unhappiness and anger. Joan Allen is great here and so is Kevin Costner. Although I usually despise the man I must say his acting has finally come full-circle: he is completely unafraid to play fat, unappealing and oddball. He's no longer governed by some studio-controlled image of himself as Gary Cooper-esque leading man. He's ready to just Act, and let the chips fall where they may.Erika Christensen steals the show here as Andy, gorgeous and luscious, with a perfect pair of breasts that can scarcely keep from leaping out of her low-cut tops and doing a tap dance on the table top. (She gives good mammary.) Keri Russel is great in an underdeveloped role and Evan Rachel Wood plays a girl with the inexplicable name of Popeye... no, I don't know why either.The movie tends to veer from broad comedy to intense drama and then to realistic character study... it's these changes in tone that make it uneven and difficult to enjoy as a singular cohesive idea. The movie also loses points for its cartoonish score, in which plucked strings turn the proceedings goofy and nonsensical, when a dignified melody would have served more effectively.It's not fantastic cinema, and at times it seems to be a cross between "American Beauty" & "Uncle Buck," but "The Upside Of Anger" is an earnest character-driven movie that provides some nice quiet moments, some drama, and some genuine laughs. That's enough for me tonight.GRADE: B-

I've seen stupid endings in my life, yes, but this is too much. In this movie, after everybody discovered that Joan Allen's husband was actually dead in a well in the backyard of their lovely house for years (so, he never abandoned her or their daughters, friends and job, as she thought and she told to everybody)... what happened? Nothing. This crazy woman assumed that he left her and run away with another woman and never looked back, that he was a cheater and an evil man. She made everybody believed that, made his daughters suffer a lot and hate him, too, she was completely wrong, and you know, it's OK.They put the poor guy in a coffin, then they sat together feeling finally in peace. So,according to this movie, if your husband vanishes suddenly and with no explanation or further phone calls, you could easily assume that he escaped with a younger woman and tell everybody that he is a complete monster.If someone, just by accident, discover later that he actually had a terrible accident and he's dead, well, it's just the way it is. No remorse, no recriminations, no guilt. All your family is going to be perfectly well with your little mistake. Isn't that lovely?