Grace is Gone DVD Review
Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 05.31.2008
Gone, but clearly not forgotten. In fact, it's unforgettable.
Grace is Gone DVD Review
Gone, but clearly not forgotten
Directed by: James C. Strouse Written by: James C. Strouse
Starring: John Cusack - Stanley Philipps Shélan O'Keefe - Heidi Phillips Gracie Bednarczyk - Dawn Phillips Alessandro Nivola - John Phillips Doug Dearth - Captain Riggs Doug James - Chaplain Johnson Dana Lynne Gilhooley - Grace Phillips Katie Honaker - Voice of Grace Phillips
Domestic Gross: $50,899 Worldwide Gross: $107,435
DVD Release Date: 5/27/2008 Running Time: 85 minutes
Rated PG-13 for thematic material, brief strong language and teen smoking
John Cusack is one of the most underrated and talented actors of his generation. The movie star, who began his career in 1983 with a role with the coming-of-age film Class, has proceeding, in the last quarter of a century, to quietly build one of the most impressive resumes around. From the classics of his youth like Sixteen Candles, Stand By Me, Better Off Dead and the amazing Say Anything into the 90’s, where he made new classics such as Grosse Point Blank, Being John Malkovich and Bullets Over Broadway alongside big-budget films like Con Air and The Thin Red Line, Cusack traveled the Johnny Depp route of avoiding celebrity in favor of doing projects he wanted to do. This trend has continued in the twenty-fist century, where Cusack has taken on a more active role in the creation of his films along with getting some of the attention he deserves in more high profile roles. The results, such as High Fidelity, the incredibly underrated Max, the horror greats Identity and 1408, and War, Inc., his most recent effort (which I reviewed last week). Between those last two films, a tiny little movie got a tiny, tiny release. That movie was Grace is Gone.
The Movie
Stanley Philipps (Cusack) is the manager at a Home Depot-like home and garden store, and the father of two girls, twelve-year-old Heidi (O'Keefe) and eight-year-old Dawn (Bednarczyk). He’s raising his children while his wife Grace is overseas in Iraq. Stanley is a reserved, quiet man, who’s strict with his kids. When he goes to visit a support group for Iraqi soldiers’ spouses, he sits there silently and uncomfortably and, when called on to share, he gives a brief, clipped answer. His goal is just to make it through and do what he needs to for his family…unfortunately his world is torn apart when two soldiers show up to his door to inform him that Grace was killed in battle. Devastated and numb, he goes through the motions with the officers and lets them go, not going into work. When his children come home, he tries to tell them but can’t. In a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable moment that will crush his children, he takes them on a trip, out of the blue, to the Enchanted Gardens theme park in Florida. Along the way, they visit Stanley’s aimless brother John (Nivola) and Stanley starts to realize just how much this is affecting not only his children, but himself. At the same time, while Dawn is just excited to go to her favorite amusement park, Heidi starts to realize that something is very, very wrong.
The role of Stanley is one that’s very unlike anything Cusack’s ever played. While the veteran actor has shown the depth of his range before, there is a certain quality to roles that we’ve come to expect—the witty, dry humor and sarcastic tones. Stanley is a different beast altogether…he’s a deeply repressed, quiet and stern man who is deeply frustrated by his intense desire to defend his country, and pained by the guilt that bad eyesight kept him behind, yet sent his wife off to die. The performance is brilliantly understated, and the moments when Stan’s frustration boils over and he explodes, such as a confrontation with his brother that gets somewhat physical, are very intense and real. Cusack gives a performance that is simply impossible to look away from, and you can feel his pain, as well as his growth as a father when he tries to reconnect with his children, on a very real level. Alessandro Nivola, best known previously for playing Nicolas Cage’s brother Pollux in Face/Off, serves his role as the unemployed, leftist John well. John is a remarkably flawed character who doesn’t have the tact to avoid railing against what he sees as a deeply immoral war in front of two young girls who’s mother is overseas, and yet in a scene at a fast-food restaurant, he shows how deeply he cares for them in a way that doesn’t come off as maudlin over clichéd. For their part, the young actresses are good-to-great. Gracie Bednarczyk is exuberant, if sometimes a bit over the top at times as the young Dawn; Shélan O'Keefe however is nothing less then a revelation. She imbues Heidi with a very real sense of a young teenage girl growing up in an intensely difficult situation, a woman who is trying to become an adult way too quickly. Her growing awareness of the fact that something is not right about the way their father is played in an understated and deeply personal manner. It’s a very promising start to a career for a young actress, the sort of quality reminiscent of Evan Rachel Wood’s lauded performance in Thirteen. One can only hope that great things are ahead for her.
One of the strengths of the film is in the writing. While this is a movie about the war in Iraq, it stays deeply neutral and focuses more on the personal story of a man trying to deal with the loss of a wife, and how to communicate this to children he can’t properly talk to. When Stanley and John, in the one scene really dealing with the political aspects of the war, trade arguments over dinner, both of them sound equally ineffective and narrow-minded, and this is a nice little exchange that manages to address the debate of the war in a way that neither takes a side nor ignores it. James C. Strouse, who wrote the film and directed after Rob Reiner pulled out for unknown reasons, does best with the quieter, more personal moments, such as when Stanley and Heidi share a conversation about cigarettes and why Heidi goes out on walks at night. The more emotional and intense scenes sometimes come off passably to well, but it is the little things that Strouse excels at here. A montage of the three leads having fun at the amusement park, after a deeply sad moment from Heidi, is very touching, real and joyous, yet in a haunting way. A Golden Globe-nominated score by Clint Eastwood adds to that feel, managing to avoid overpowering the film in favor of enhancing the mood and theme like any score should do at their best.
The one, minor flaw with the film is the lighting and shooting of the film, which are clearly not Strouse’s strengths. This is an entirely forgivable flaw, coming from a first-time director who never intended to direct and a cinematographer (Jean-Louis Bompoint) who’s previous works, including The Science of Sleep, were very different styles of films. In the end, while it is a noticeable flaw, it does very little to detract from an otherwise great film.
Film Rating: 9.5
Technical Aspects
Grace is Gone is presented in a nice, clear anamorphic widescreen video format that carries the film over to DVD well. Not much more then that is needed in this film, which is not a visual masterpiece as it is. The colors are slightly washed out, but this seems a more stylistic choice then error in filming or transfer. The audio has no options to change, but is crisp and clear without fault. Subtitles are English or Spanish. There’s certainly nothing amazing about these aspects, but there are no major flaws, either, and it’s simply serviceable.
Technical Rating: 6.0
Special Features
This is a film where the lack of special features hurts it just a touch; particularly, a commentary track would have been exceptional. This clearly seems to be the sort of labor of love film that could have gotten Cusack (who also produced) and Strouse talking and provided some great insight.
A Conversation with Grace: (7:04) This making-of featurette is pretty standard fare, and offers the usual interviews with cast and crew talking about the film.
Inspiration for Grace is Gone: This is a nicely touching short profiling a real-life family which suffered a similar fate to the Phillips family in the film. It’s very deep and moving, and the highlight of the limited of limited features on the disk.
Special Features Rating: 5.0
The 411: John Cusack gives what could well be the performance of his career to date in Grace is Gone, a touching and deeply personal story about a family's reaction to grief. Supported by an amazing performance by young newcomer Shélan O'Keefe as Heidi, and decent acting from everyone else, it's a film that manages to entertain and stick in your head long after you're done with it. A few minor grievances, particularly in the lack of a commentary track, don't detract from the DVD enough to make it anything less then one of the most enjoyable DVD releases this year. A must-see, if not buy.
