Cast: Laura Linney, Mark Ruffalo, Rory Culkin, Matthew Broderick
Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Producers: Barbara De Fina, John Hart, Larry Meistrich, Jeff Sharp
Screenplay: Kenneth Lonergan
Cinematography: Stephen Kazmierski
Music: Lesley Barber
U.S. Distributor: Paramount Classics
Kenneth Lonergan's directorial debut, You Can Count On Me, is one of those movies that straddles a number of fences. It functions well as either a comedy or a drama. It tells a straightforward story, but does so in a slightly off-kilter manner. It's bold enough to appeal to aficionados of independent cinema, but conventional enough not to drive away mainstream audiences. Actually, although the film has officially been classified as a drama by whatever powers make that distinction, the movie is more noteworthy for its comic sensibilities than for its dramatic structure. Lonergan is no stranger to comedy - he wrote the screenplay for 2000's The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and co-wrote 1999's Analyze This. Along with Girlfight, You Can Count On Me took top honors in the 2000 Sundance dramatic competition, and Lonergan walked off with the Best Screenwriting award. Considering the film's sharp character development, compelling storyline, and smart dialogue, it's not hard to understand why. Girlfight is the better film, but, during a weak year in Park City, You Can Count On Me deserved some sort of recognition. (It parlayed the Sundance win into a distribution deal with Paramount Classics and a "Special Presentation" slot at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival.)
You Can Count On Me is a seemingly simple family drama that turns out not to be so simple. The film opens with a short sequence in 1982 that shows two young children attending the funeral of their parents, who were killed in a car accident. Fast forward 18 years. Sammy (Laura Linney) is now a single mother, trying to cope with raising a precocious 8-year old, Rudy (Rory Culkin), and holding down her job at the local bank. Brian (Matthew Broderick), the new manager, has come aboard with Gestapo-like tactics that are driving Sammy crazy. (At one point, after declaring that each employee shall fill out a time sheet every day and being reminded that such a procedure will generate a lot of paper work, he states, "I like paper work," which pretty much sums up his personality.) Out of the blue, Sammy's brother, Terry (Mark Ruffalo), decides to visit his sister. She is overjoyed, but he has an ulterior motive for coming home - he needs money. And his arrival in the small upstate New York town where he grew up causes a few minor waves.
In terms of broad plot, You Can Count On Me doesn't offer much that's new. The film uses some fairly standard building blocks: the brother/sister angle, the single mother struggling to raise a child on her own, and the contentious at-work relationship between two people who are simultaneously attracted to and repelled by one another. However, instead of relying exclusively on formulas, Lonergan gives his characters and their circumstances some room in which to breathe. He is also a talented screenwriter. The dialogue in this film is not written for a least-common-denominator audience, and there's plenty of humor (some of it laugh-aloud funny) peppered in between the dramatic episodes. Lonergan also brings religion into the mix in a way that is not condescending or preachy - a difficult thing for any filmmaker to accomplish.
The cast does a superlative job. Laura Linney, who almost certainly deserves to be better known than she is, portrays Sammy with an appealing mixture of strength and vulnerability. Confident, believable female characters are something of a rarity in movie theaters these days, and Linney imbues Sammy with traits that make her worth spending a couple of hours with. Mark Ruffalo finds the right balance between self-interest and selflessness, and Matthew Broderick re-creates virtually the same persona he brought to the screen in Election, affirming once again that Ferris Bueller has grown up. Finally, the latest of the Culkin clan to start a career in acting, Rory, is almost a dead ringer for Macaulay in Home Alone, although his role here has a little more depth and a few less smart alecky one-liners.
On the whole, You Can Count On Me is a pleasant motion picture, offering a solid evening's worth of entertainment. The film probably wouldn't have suffered had a few minutes been trimmed from the running length - the final cut seems a little protracted. As far as dramatic comedies (or comedic dramas) go, this one offers everything one might expect from a successful entry into the genre, delivering laughs and some genuinely moving instances of character interaction. It probably won't score big in the multiplexes, but most of those who plunk down a few dollars to see it will walk away pleased.
© 2000 James Berardinelli