Review of Grace Is Gone (2007) by Walter M — 20 Apr 2009

[font=Century Gothic]"Grace Is Gone" is a slight movie that has headier ideas than its apparently thin plot would seemingly allow for. Stanley(John Cusack) would rather be anywhere than a support group for spouses of soldiers, especially considering that he was once a lifer in the army until he was forced out due to poor eyesight.

Now, with his wife Grace serving in Iraq, he sits on the sideliness, working as a manager for a home furnishing store. Ironically, he is unable to talk about the war in Iraq with his daughters Heidi(Shelan O'Keefe), 12 going on 35, and Dawn(Gracie Bednarczyk), 8.

His rigid and reserved stance makes it even harder for him to deal with the news of his wife's death, not even telling his daughters. To delay the inevitable, he instead agrees to take them to Enchanted Gardens in Florida through a landscape of chain motels and restaurants.

Or do they? There is something entirely symbolic about a man who cannot tell the truth about a war, driving to a fantasy land. On the way, he stops at his parents' house where there is no sign of them but his brother John(Alessandro Nivola) as Stanley probably thinks of him as a leftist layabout.

The reality is probably much more complex.[/font].