Review of Grace Is Gone (2007) by John B — 12 Jun 2008
Really didn't like this film much at all. I normally enjoy John Cusack's work, but I found this movie to be very thinly veiled pro-war propaganda that for me fell flat on many levels.
***SPOILER ALERT***.
This was a "rah-rah go-Iraq" movie. The brother (the only person in the whole film who has a single negative thing to say about the war) is portrayed as a dope-fiend layabout loser. The one moment of possible emotional interest was when they hugged just before John Cusack and the girls left. But this was far too short and surface to truly engage me enough to make up for the rest of the film. This was a "nothing happened" movie. I was hoping the older daughter (good actress, by the way) would have figured out what had happened and confronted her father after hearing the messages on the answering machine. Then there could have been some real dramatic tension as the older daughter plays the wiser one in suggesting that her father should be honest with both his girls. Instead, she keeps quiet, letting this meandering non-story come to an end in an obvious and unsatisfying montage that offers the viewer nothing in terms of anything learned by anyone.
***END SPOILER ALERT***.
Watching this film, I got the distinct impression that it was a semi-autobiographical story written by someone who had actually gone through something like this. If this is the case, I hope the writer found it to be a cathartic experience, because it certainly did nothing for me or my wife.
This review of Grace Is Gone (2007) was written by John B on 12 Jun 2008.
Grace Is Gone has generally received positive reviews.
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