Review of All Good Things (2010) by Amanda C — 04 Sep 2011

All Good Things has a wonderful neo-noir quality to it. It's dark and brooding and bleak. David Marks (Ryan Gosling) fits perfectly into this world, with his blank stare, drab hair cut and clothing and the kind of off personality. His wife Katherine (Kirsten Dunst) provides the ray of light struggling to shine through the darkness of the rest of the film. There's not a lot of hope here, with a relentless Phillip Glass like soundtrack the repetitive drive of which keeps you on edge throughout. There's an overall sense of foreboding that is established early with the voice over from a murder trail to this film that builds until it's almost unbearable. And here's where the film runs into some problems. It's a tad too heavy handed.

Based on a missing person's case that has never been solved, All Good Things would have been more effective had the filmmakers not made it so obvious what they think happened. While the film doesn't exactly judge David or condemn him, they make it no secret that he killed his wife and got away with it, which in itself is a judgment. There is a little too much time spent trying to make this a thriller and not enough time establishing the characters. It's in some weird grey area of trying to be a genre film and an art film and not quite making it on either count. I spent almost two hours with these characters and know nothing about them other than the superficial.

The three leads are phenomenal. Dunst has never been better and she carries the film easily, giving some warmth and feeling to the otherwise sterile landscape. Gosling manages to get something kind of human out of his character, but wasn't given much to work with and does a commendable job with what he has. And Frank Langella is as always impeccable bringing something beyond words to his role, an intelligence and a presence that can't be matched. It's the three actors that make this a film worth seeing, all of them working beyond what the script and director gave them, neither of which were really up to the challenge.