Everybody's Fine

While enveloped in a certain melancholia, there's a sweet upturn to the film Everybody's Fine that's quietly comforting. Its understated charm is something of a surprise given its stellar cast (Robert di Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell), but perhaps this can be attributed to the fact that it's an adaptation of the Italian film Stanno Tutti Bene - and retains (to some extent anyway) a European sensitivity.

Eight months after the death of his wife, Frank Goode (Robert de Niro) feels emotionally distanced from his grown-up children. So, despite a dicky heart, he sets off on a trip around America to make surprise visits to see them. But, busy with their apparently super successful lives, they shuffle him on. It’s heartbreaking to see Frank desperately trying to take on his late wife’s role of family communicator, unifier and supporter, but to no avail. Little does he know his children are distant because they are trying to protect him from life’s tough truths - their tough truths. The upshot is that they inadvertently cut him out and everyone's left isolated and alone, putting on a brave face: Fine. Everybody's Fine. This is a thoughtful, sensitive film – although touched with humour it meditates with poignancy and insightfulness on the tragedy of a loving but pushy father who’s grown apart from his children as they’ve grow up, and the agonising irony of pretending you're OK when inside you're anything but. a bit weepy, basically.