EVERYTHING MUST GO (2011) (a review)This is another of Will Ferrell's serious, only slightly comedic roles (ala STRANGER THAN FICTION). The movie was written and directed by Dan Rush.
The story: after losing his job, a man comes home to find he is locked out of the house and all his stuff is on the lawn. He has no money and his credit cards are declined, so he decides to stay there and have a 5-day yard sale to get rid of his stuff and figure out what to do.
Was it good?
No.
The movie was just too slow and if there was supposed to be something deep and powerful in it, it didn't come through at all. LOST IN TRANSLATION is slow, but it has some powerful emotional moments and a great ending. This one didn't.
There are a few weird choices. For instance the lead (Ferrell) is supposed to be an alcoholic who had a relapse and that's why his wife threw him out. Except we never meet his wife. We never see their relationship. He could have been a single guy getting thrown out of an apartment. Why make him married? Why bother if you aren't going to exploit it? I thought the idea of selling his stuff was a metaphore for moving on, but since we don't know the wife we have no idea what he is moving on from or why he would have trouble letting go. I mean, the only thing we know about her (at the beginning) is that she locks him out and tosses his stuff and destroys his credit cards and bank account...so she seems like a real b*tch! He's lucky to be rid of her! He shouldn't be sulking, he should be out celebrating that the witch is gone!
This is just such a fundamental problem and it's something I see all the time -- writers not setting up their stories properly. Often its because they move too fast, which is just as bad as moving too slow. In this case it guts the entire metaphore.
Now that can be fine if the focus of the movie is on something else. However here there really isn't anything else. There's no deep insight. No powerful relationship. And the main character isn't actively working toward anything.
The other angle is that he is an alcoholic. That's why he got fired and why his wife locked him out. And he spends a good amount of time drinking, and yet there really isn't anything in the movie that deals with alcoholism or anything like that. He might as well have just been bouncing a ball, because that's all they did with the alcoholism -- use it as a way to keep time.
Even the supporting characters don't have much. There's a kid who helps him who doesn't really have a story and a pregnant woman he befriends who doesn't really have a story...
I appreciate that this isn't just a typical Hollywood movie and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that the script made good use of the metaphore and maybe had some powerful moments, but they just didn't translate onto the screen.
This movie wasn't horrible, but there are plenty of character driven movies out there that are a lot better.
*** AVOID ***
