BEAUTY AT THE BOTTOM: a review of "Everything Must Go"

“EVERYTHING MUST GO”
Based upon the short story “Why Don’t You Dance?” by Raymond Carver
Written For The Screen and Directed by Dan Rush
*** ½ (three and a half stars)

What a pleasure it has been to go to the movies as of late!!! For so many years, I have lamented repeatedly that I wished film studios would actually release strong material throughout the entire year instead of waiting until November and awards season. Although this year in cinema is still young, I have just been so pleasantly impressed and excited about going to the movies as Joe Wright’s kinetic, psychedelic thriller “Hanna,” Kenneth Branagh’s terrific “Thor,” Miguel Arteta’s charming “Cedar Rapids” and of course, Paul Feig and Judd Apatow’s excellent “Bridesmaids” all ranked highly for me. All of those films tried their best, exceeded expectations, offered unique and fresh cinematic takes on tried and true material (assassins, superheroes, the fish out of water and R rated adult comedies) that dangerously runs the risk of becoming clichéd or losing luster due to over exposure.

This afternoon, I was blessed with yet another very strong release as I screened Director Dan Rush’s “Everything Must Go,” an adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story and featuring a rare dramatic performance from Will Ferrell. It was a quiet, nuanced, deeply perceptive, intelligent film that deftly avoided falling into any clichéd holes of histrionics and false sentiment. “Everything Must Go” beautifully exceeded expectations and it comes highly recommended to you!

Will Ferrell stars as Nick Halsey, who at the start of “Everything Must Go,” is having an awful day. A once respected and profitable career salesman, Nick’s downward spiral continues as he is fired for yet one more alcoholic induced disaster. After pitifully flattening the tire of his boss with the Swiss Army knife given to him as part of his severance package and purchasing cases of beer, Nick arrives to his home to find that his wife has left him and all of his possessions are scattered throughout his front lawn. Nick is soon unable to access his finances, and his company car is repossessed, leaving him without funds or the ability to find a place to stay. Drunkenly setting up shop on his lawn in his favorite recliner, Nick drinks himself to sleep and is woken each morning by the blast of the sprinkler.

After being visited by his sponsor Detective Frank Garcia (Michael Pena), who informs Nick that having all of his property publicly placed upon his front lawn is illegal and must be dealt with immediately, Nick reluctantly takes Frank’s suggestion of holding a yard sale.

Over a period of three days and nights, Nick sluggishly attends to his yard sale and continues to drink heavily. Yet, even while hitting a personal rock bottom, hope arrives in two tentative friendships he makes. The first with the young Kenny (played sensitively by Christopher Jordan Wallace, son of The Notorious B.I.G.), a lonely latch-key kid whom Nick enlists as a business partner (and also utilizes his bicycle for transportation). The second is Samantha (the terrifically understated Rebecca Hall), a new arrival to the neighborhood, pregnant and wearily awaiting the arrival of her businessman husband.

Like the best short stories, “Everything Must Go” is a film that effortlessly packs large, complex themes into a small and easily digestible package. Rush’s direction is completely confident and sure-footed, knowing exactly what information to dole out to the audience and when, making for a story that resonates emotionally as well as existing as a concise piece of storytelling. We are firmly established in Nick’s world, problems and mindset from the film’s opening moments and he holds us in his grasp, with an unforced cinematic hand all the way to the conclusion, which features an image that is perfectly elegiac.

Will Ferrell, who has already demonstrated in Marc Forster’s literary, existential fantasy “Stranger Than Fiction” (2006) that he can more than effectively handle non-comedic roles, gives an excellent dramatic performance. Filled with subtleties, layers, and shadings, Ferrell is no crying clown and avoids the type of maudlin clichés that have occasionally derailed a talent as unquestionably immense as Robin Williams’, notably with his more undisciplined saccharine work in Tom Shadyac’s “Patch Adams” (1998) or Chris Columbus’ “Bicentennial Man” (1999). Ferrell’s performance recalled for me the work of Bill Murray in Jim Jarmusch’s “Broken Flowers” (2005) or most notably Michael Keaton’s blistering work as a recovering addict in Glenn Gordon Caron’s “Clean and Sober” (1988).

Large sections of “Everything Must Go” are essentially a one-man show as Will Ferrell compellingly holds our attention and draws us deeply into his alcoholic haze. He is so skilled that we are able to witness the minuscule degrees of his inebriation and soberness. His scenes with Christopher Jordan Wallace are almost painfully bittersweet as they play catch, confess buried fears and share an isolation that somehow connects them despite the differences between their ages, races and backgrounds. Their final scenes truly ache with a certain fragility concerning the future and the parts they may or may not play within each other’s lives.

Furthermore, his scenes with Rebecca Hall contain palpable tension they can read each other instantly yet dance around treacherous subject matter because what they may say about each other will expose truths about themselves to themselves.

Beyond being the story of a man trying to make sense of the shambles his life has become through holding a cathartic yard sale, “Everything Must Go,” at its core, is a film about the destructive nature of alcoholism. In many ways, this film went down dark avenues in the very fashion that Writer/Director Tom McCarthy’s “Win Win,” another drama with comedic elements and thematic storm clouds, seemed to be afraid to travel and I greatly appreciated the effort. It made the film feel more honest and considerably less sugar coated and tidy. “Everything Must Go” is a film meant to open some wounds.

A wonderful extended sequence features a terrific Laura Dern as a barely remembered high school classmate who once wrote a flirtatious comment in Nick’s Senior yearbook. The combined performances of Dern and Ferrell spoke volumes about life’s disappointments when two people who once possessed such promise and held big dreams have emerged into middle age with crushing failures, slowly realizing they did not turn into the people they had once wished to become. One is a divorced, single Mother and failed actress while the other is an unemployed drunk yet where each of them continue from this point all comes down to the power of choice and resilience. Rush has crafted an untidy, uncomfortable sequence with exquisite poignancy.

Yes, the movies theaters are about to become extremely crowded with one MAJOR release after another but I do highly recommend that you seek this film out if it is playing in your area. “Everything Must Go” is a small jewel of a film about how we carry and discard the excess baggage of all of our lives, discovering levels of personal redemption in the process. Mostly, it not only empathetically depicts the act of how we fall but also the baby steps we take to uncover the Herculean resolve that is necessary to rise again.

For those of you in Madison, this film is playing exclusively at Sundance Cinemas.