Monday, March 21, 2005

The Upside of Costner

Saturday night I dragged a friend to see the "Upside of Anger." I had read good things about the movie and wanted to check it all.

Well, my five word summary.

It Sucked. It was Awesome.

First, it was more than one of those films that are better than they have every right to be.
The directing was flawed, the script and story was paper thin. Especially the premise and I just don't want to think about the contrived ending. The supporting roles except for maybe Shep were fairly weak, but they really didn't have a lot to do.

However, the performances by Kevin Costner and Joan Allen. Wow. Talk about so close to perfect. Joan Allen played her part convincingly. For playing an angry, bitter alcoholic she was likeable and you found yourself rooting for her.

Kevin Costner is one of those actors most people have a love hate relationship with. I never really liked him in Field of Dreams. I detest Dances with Wolves, he should never ever do accents, but I adore the film Bill Durham and his character here is similar. He's equal parts rogue and charmer, upright and sleaze, he pulls it off so well and his chemistry with Allen is awesome.

Needless to say this film was equally fustrating and pure bliss. Talk about trippy.

1 comment:

HOO said...

Thank you for your review. I have to admit that I've been secretly keeping tabs on this one, and was really sucked in by the preview. Costner has a likeability about him that unfortunately he has traded way too much on, lobbing duds at us most of the time. I totally agree with you about Bull Durham though, that' is one terrific movie, although in my dreams I identify with Susan Sarandon's character a little too much. You're totally right though...it's love hate with dude. And I'm glad there is once again something to love.