“Everybody's Fine” is a quiet, light study in family dysfunction, a comedy-drama with no heroes or villains, just sad people who aren't necessarily telling the truth when somebody asks, “Are you happy?”
That's become an important question to Frank Goode (Robert DeNiro), a widowed retiree whose four adult children won't make the time to visit now that Mom has died.
Frank resolves to drop in on each of the four — surprise visits. They tell him “everybody's fine” on those rare occasions he gets each of them on the phone. But he wants the truth. Kirk (“Nanny McPhee”) Jones' movie never finds a tone that it's comfortable with as Frank amusingly bores fellow train and bus travelers with tales of his work and his family.
Contrast that with each visit to his offspring — Kate Beckinsale in Chicago, Drew Barrymore in Las Vegas, Sam Rockwell in Denver. Dad observes what the kids might have once told Mom, but not him.
The movie has one open secret and a few “reveals” — including the kids' efforts to solve problems involving the sibling we don't meet.
The patient pace and subtle disappointment the kids feel about their lives, disappointment that they worry will be shared by Dad, make for a movie of no cathartic confrontations.
A contrived and melodramatic third act seems out of character and abrupt.
But DeNiro's winning, thoughtful performance and matching work from those cast as his kids make this dramedy a tolerably sober alternative to holiday froth at the mutliplex.
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