Review of You Can Count on Me (2000) by James R — 01 Jul 2007

Laura Linney is a force of nature in this film. She takes situations which, in the wrong hands, could have been overdone and cliched (relationships with her loser brother, her precocious eight-year-old son, and the new boss with whom she's having an affair) and turns each scene into something fresh and wonderful.

Linney is so alive, so painstakingly real; take, for example, that small mastery of a scene where she's driving home from a quickie with her boss (Matthew Broderick) at a motel. She looks pensive, then bursts into laughter, and becomes solemn -- all seamlessly connected.

Every time she stands up for her reasons, she feels right, and we root for her character in every situation she finds herself in. The way she wears glasses while driving, her love of country music, her repitition of the name "Terry" upon seeing her brother once again -- a reminder of his presence as well as perhaps her quasi-maternal role after the tragic deaths of their parents years earlier.

Her counsiling session with the local pastor. When she smokes a joint with Terry one late night. It's one of the greatest performances in the history of cinema in a movie that is compulsively engrossing and masterfully written and executed.

The side players are uniformally solid, especially Ruffalo, Broderick, and young Culkin. But Linney makes this movie great in a role that is truly one of contemporary American cinema's great originals.