You Can Count on Me

Kenneth Lonergan's debut feature as writer and director is one of the best and quietest films of the past year. Reminiscent of the kind of sensibility found in Terrence Malick's films, Lonergan's movie is shaped around the interplay between the eternal and the transient.

The parents of a young brother and sister are killed in a car crash. Jump twenty years or so later. The sister (Laura Linney) lives in the same small-town and her brother (Vincent Ruffalo) returns. Where the sister's life is composed and apparently stable (quiet job, young son, nice house) the brother's life is about as stable as the San Andreas fault. His sister is delighted to see him. Sure enough, the film's key dramatic line is built around the brother's difficulty in adjusting to a quiet and still kind of life.

The film is a real actor's piece, reflecting Lonergan's theatrical background. Laura Linney's performance is a knockout, proving there remains a very healthy place in the movies for what were once called 'women's pictures'. Matthew Broderick as the quirky, unfulfilled bank manager is terrific, cocooning himself in his work when he should really be addressing the complications of his own life. Vincent Ruffalo as Terry is incredible. A moment where he sits on a bed and cries is absolutely truthful. And yet, the film never feels stilted and there is a real economy to many of the scenes.

Ultimately, You Can Count on Me is one of the best 'mainstream' movies of recent years. A concentrated piece, ably combining straight arrow domestic drama with real problems and a comic edge, the film has something real about it. Underscored by some terrific Steve Earle songs and an elegiac theme, You Can Count on Me delicately commits itself to celebrating some kind of stillness, in this age of distraction and motion, and honours everyone's desire and need to live their own way. To borrow from a scene in the movie, you hold the hammer the way you want.

Reviewed by James Clarke