Big Screen Peter: Everything Must Go

 

Editor’s note: Peter Lewis has agreed to use whatever it is you call his writing style to provide some measure of analysis to those folks who still go to a theater to see a movie.

review by Peter Lewis

Watching “Everything Must Go,” I was left wondering why Will Ferrell doesn’t make more serious-minded films. There’s no doubt his propensity for absurdist comedy fills the coffers, but those films offer few moments of lasting impact. For every “Anchorman” or “Old School,” Ferrell has been in a half-dozen stinkers like “Land of the Lost” or “Semi-Pro.”

Yet, these films bely a real current of talent that is infrequently showcased. Ferrell certainly possesses a grizzled, everyman visage that seems perfectly proportioned for sad-sack affairs like “Everything Must Go,” or the slightly more lighthearted “Stranger Than Fiction.”

No one will mistake “Everything Must Go” for Ferrell’s chummy comedies. The film is resolutely despondent: Ferrell plays Nick Halsey, a successful “functioning” alcoholic whose recent sobriety is ruined when a relapse causes a chain reaction that leads not only to his unemployment, but to the departure of his wife. As he pulls into his home, he finds the entirety of his life scattered in piles across the lawn. With the locks changed, he has no choice but to embrace his lot with copious amounts of beer and a willingness to sleep in his front yard amongst his things.

The Halsey we see on screen has been worn down by life, the various slights and snubs and disappointments that accrete over the years and plant the seeds of serious mental discord. But the essence of Nick Halsey is counter-balanced with moments of emotional humanity: we not only feel sorry for Halsey, but we see the possibility within him — he’s smart, successful and, at times, full of the vivacity that likely once drove him toward greater heights. We latch onto this humanity and hope, no doubt like many friends of addicts, that he might carve through the mess toward his true potential.

The film is certainly Ferrell’s show: long stretches focus on his lonely, yard-based existence.

It’s the supporting cast, however, that propels the film toward something larger, something more transcendent. Christopher Jordan Wallace, playing a similarly dispossessed youth named Kenny Loftus, is mild-mannered and completely anchored to reality. His presence is searching and real. Both he and Halsey seek out validation and are, in a sense, saved by one another.

Forming the yen to Loftus’ yang is Samantha (Rebecca Hall), a young pregnant photographer who has moved in across the street just as Halsey’s world splits apart. In her, Nick finds a modicum of possibility. She represents hope, the bright possibility of happiness in our nonsensical world.

Yet the cast is far from perfect. Michael Pena, as Nick’s erstwhile sponsor Detective Frank Garcia, is resolutely bland. While alcoholics come in a variety of forms, nothing about his performance seemed authentic. As Nick grapples with new found realities, Frank exudes nothing resembling emotion. The thread of urgency is lost and the film stumbles slightly.

Thematically, the only discordant notes are hit toward the end of the film. For a movie that is so honest and unflinching, it seems a bit of a cop out for the messy plot to wrap up so neatly. With the closing montage, the films seems custom wrapped with a festive bow. The movie’s hopefulness is not necessarily misplaced, just slightly askew in comparison to the reality previously presented.

“Everything Must Go” explores the searching emptiness of our existence and the validation we crave as social beings. Even with a few small missteps, it’s a constructive and excellent exercise, worth every penny of the admission … assuming, of course, it comes to Fort Smith area theaters.

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