Things are frosty between Jean and Einar because he blames her for the death of his son who died in a car accident years before. That is enough.After suffering for too long at the hands (and fists) of her violent boyfriend, Jean Gilkyson (Lopez) flees with her 11-year-old daughter Griff (Becca Gardner) to her estranged father-in-law Einar's (Redford) dilapidated ranch. We don't expect any twists and there aren't any, but as Jean tries to put her life back together, her healing makes it possible for the others to get on with things. This one, based on an original screenplay by Mark and Virginia Korus Spragg, is modest and heartfelt, dealing directly with straightforward material.
#MOVIE REVIEW AN UNFINISHED LIFE MOVIE#
"An Unfinished Life" was directed by Lasse Hallstrom, who has made a better movie about a dysfunctional family (" What's Eating Gilbert Grape") and a worse one (" The Cider House Rules").
#MOVIE REVIEW AN UNFINISHED LIFE FREE#
I was not quite as ready for the solution involving the bear, not after seeing " Grizzly Man" and remembering Werner Herzog's scary narration: The "blank stare" of a bear, he says, reveals not wisdom but "only the half-bored interest in food." While it is reasonable for bears to want to be free, it may not be reasonable for humans to want to live close to free bears. How they deal with it is not original, but it is sincere and the actors are convincing. Until they deal with it, they can't get on with things. Then we realize the death has put Einar, Jean, Mitch and Griff all on hold. The unfinished life in the title at first seems to refer to Einar's dead son. Sooner or later the matter of Gary will have to be settled. Now he lurks around town, intimidated even by the two old men on the ranch, one of them an invalid, because wife-beaters by their nature are cowards. We can almost see what Jean almost saw in him. Gary on the other hand is a psychopath whose gearbox includes a setting for charm. But he is captured and sold off to a shabby local zoo, so that yokels can stare at him through the steel mesh of a cage. The bear (played by Bart, who had the title role in " The Bear"), is more likable, because after all he behaves according to his nature. The four characters seem to be stuck, and then they're budged by the arrival of two predators: The bear comes back, and so does Gary the boyfriend. Freeman never seems to be playing anything he sees what he sees. It's not often noted, but Redford plays anger well. The local sheriff ( Josh Lucas) is not indifferent to the arrival in a small town of a good-looking woman. It is a foregone conclusion, I suppose, that Einar will eventually unbend enough to love Griff, who after all is his son's child, and true also that Mitch is the ranch's reservoir of decency. She doesn't want to be at the ranch, but she has no choice her latest boyfriend, Gary (Damien Lewis) beats her, and she has fled from him.
Griff ( Becca Gardner) is Einar's granddaughter.Įinar thinks he hates Jean. These men are essentially awaiting death together when they get visitors: Jean (Lopez) is the widow of Einar's son, who was killed in a car crash a dozen years ago.
Mitch was mauled a year ago by a bear, and is an invalid, given a daily needle of morphine by Einar. So has its owner, Einar Gilkyson (Redford) and his longtime ranch hand Mitch (Freeman), who lives in the little house behind the bigger one. The story takes place on a rundown ranch outside Ishawooa, Wyo. And give Lopez your permission to be good again she is the same actress now as when we thought her so new and fine.
If you're convinced that "An Unfinished Life" is damaged goods, how can it begin its work on you? If you think Freeman is channeling the relationship he had with Eastwood in " Million Dollar Baby," reflect that this movie was made a year earlier. Sometimes you are either open to a movie, or closed.
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