Review of All Is Bright (2013) by Loyal D — 21 Nov 2013

Phil Morrison started strongly at the beginning and the first half of directing was almost perfect! Melissa James Gibson's story of Dennis (Paul Giamatti), a Quebeqois robber who learns only after being released from prison that his former accomplice and friend is dating the mother of his child, was unfolding smoothly on the big screen. The wonderful jazz-combo score following his first steps outside the prison was becoming more dramatic when his wife (Amy Landecker) warns Dennis not to reveal himself to their tween daughter, whom she's told that her daddy died of cancer. Dennis has a brief fit of rage at the wife and later lands one punch on the accomplice, Rene (Paul Rudd), but that's all... homeless and desperate for work, he tags along with his betrayer on a trip to New York to sell Christmas trees.

I didn't have a problem at all enjoying fully this part, even with the passivity of the protagonist, which for some in the audience could be very annoying. But later part of the movie moves into more soapy melodrama type with some fake moments undermining the delicately observed and truthful ones. One of the critics noticed that it could never happen in laidback Greenpoint, Brooklyn that owner of the diner are so obnoxious to snatch Dennis out of their bathroom mid-pee because he isn't a paying customer. Much later, after he's somehow made amends with the owners and sets a few bills on the counter en route to the toilet, the same guy who ejected him now accepts his cash with a sneering, "F@$k you very much!" These are the moments which happened during Christmas season? I don't think that they ever happened, or were possible at all. It could be so much better if Morrison and screenwriter Melissa James Gibson were less interested in gimmicks which will attract the vote of the Sundance Audience than to be funny or suspenseful in a more realistic scenario.

The casting was very good, but I had an issue with Sally Hawkins' Russian and her English accent. They could cast any Russian actress in that role with much better results. Generally, Giamatti and Rudd do their part to give this film some exciting unpredictability but even with a cinematographer like W. Mott Hupfel III who captures the winter chill, ratty beards, linty coats and lived-in interiors in gorgeous medium-length takes and slow zooms, the second half of the movie is still lacking...

I think it is a kind of movie for the Christmas season - if you like something different.