I sure did want to like Four Good Days, Rodrigo Garcia’s (Albert Nobbs, Passengers) Heroin-recovery-centered drama co-starring Mila Kunis (Black Swan, The Book of Eli) and Glenn Close (Dangerous Liaisons, Fatal Attraction). It had everything I wanted in my heaving-hitting addiction dramas. It had a strung-out lead in 31-year-old Molly (Kunis) and that one person that, hopefully, all people have who will do anything to save this person they so dearly love. In this case, it is Molly’s mother, Deb (Close). The elements were in place for this to be a movie that knocked it out of the park. However, it was so severely flawed that it sometimes inadvertently detracted from the story it was trying to tell. As much as I struggled with its flimsy screenplay, its miscasting of Deb with Close, and its peculiar ending, it stuck with me so much that I wanted to go home immediately after watching it to review it. There is zero percent chance that Four Good Days ends in my 2020 Top Ten Movies of the Year list, but I fully imagine that I will remember every little bit about this movie at the end of the year as I do today (May 6th), and not for the wrong reasons.
Category Archives: Drama
Pig (2021)
Knowing little about it, I went into my local theater to watch Michael Sarnoski’s directorial debut, Pig. I saw it playing at my local theater, checked its score on Rotten Tomatoes (97% and 95%), and then looked at the scores assigned by Richard Roeper (4/4 stars) and on Roger Ebert’s website (also 4/4 stars). The movie poster made it look like a backwoods thriller. It was enough for me. I had no idea what the movie was even about. I recall when I saw David Fincher’s Se7en back in 1995. I knew nothing about that film, which is one reason I am still so mesmerized and starstruck by that film. Had I learned more about it, it still would have been a forever classic with me. But there was something about that journey: not knowing anything about it, yet being completely engrossed. The comparison between Se7en and Pig ends there but is a notable mention nonetheless.
The World to Come (2020)
Hope. Love. Tragedy. Despair. We desire the first pair of words. We dread the second pair. When we experience all five of these emotions in the order presented here, what comes after experiencing despair? Death? Rebirth? Complacency. If the suffering is deep enough, is there any way out? Do we even want to? Do we believe that we can find joy again? If we do, will we recognize it? Will we embrace it? In Mona Fastvold’s (The Sleepwalker) The World To Come, we spend 98 minutes with Abigail (Katherine Waterston – Mid90s, Alien: Covenant), a grieving mother who has spent the year before unsuccessfully trying to process her young daughter’s death.
Breakdown (1997)
In his heyday as a leading man, Kurt Russell (The Thing, Escape from New York) had many massive box-office hits. From 1989 through 1996, he received top billing in five films (Backdraft, Unlawful Entry, Tombstone, Stargate, Executive Decision), earning more than $50 million in revenue. He continued that streak in the highly promoted Breakdown, which garnered $50.2 million while earning critical (81%) and audience (67%) acclaim. Breakdown was a movie I saw opening weekend in theaters and hadn’t revisited until 2021. I remember loving it in the theaters. Unfortunately, because so many ripoffs of this movie have done this premise better, its rewatch left something to be desired. Unlike his other films mentioned above, Breakdown fails to hold, though not through Russell’s fault; he carries it throughout, just like he does with most of his films.
Taking Chance (2009)
Taking Chance is a tender little movie most people have probably never heard of, let alone felt inclined to watch. Quietly released by HBO in early 2009, first-time director Ross Katz debuts a gem of a movie based on actual events about a high-ranking Marine officer escorting the slain body of a soldier home to his final resting place after the young man was killed in action during Operation Iraqi Freedom.