Kirk Jones (who also directed Nanny McPhee and Waking Ned Divine) directs this italian remake from the 90`s called Stanno Tutti Bene. He also is given credit for adapting the original screenplay to suit this american version better. The film works because De Niro gives a pretty powerful performance and makes you forget all the cliches the film has. Yes, it is very formulaic and we know every single kid will have something to hide from his father, they all have a problem, and they all are withholding information from him. The journey De Niro`s character is making will be revealing and teach him some lessons which he never learned in his 60 years, but he will now in these few days. Everybody`s Fine follows all those formulas which we have grown used to in Hollywood films, but thanks to some interesting performances the movie is worth your time. It is a dramedy, a movie that likes to play with our emotions, but it still is worth checking out. The weakest part of the movie is the distance that De Niro`s character has with his children. It is hard to believe sometimes that this is actually a family and I think the director exagerated a bit with the coldness and distance between them, and it all just ties up too neatly at the end.
Frank Goode (Robert De Niro) is a widower, who is planning on having his four children for dinner on the weekend. After making plans for preparing a nice meal he receives calls from each one saying that they won`t be able to make it. Frank hasn`t seen his kids since their mother`s funeral and he realizes she was the one that maintained the family together, so he decides to go give them a surprise visit each. Frank has a lung condition and his doctor recommends him to stay at home and not travel, but he decides to go anyway across the different states on train and bus. His first stop is New York where he plans on visiting David (Austin Lysy), an artist. He is not at his apartment and Frank waits for an entire day without being able to reach him, although he is glad to see one of his paintings at a gallery near his apartment. Frank decides to move on and visit his daughter Amy (Kate Beckinsale) in Chicago. She is a succesful ad executive and has a nice home she shares with her husband and son. Frank then travels to Denver the next day because she is busy and visits Robert (Sam Rockwell), who plays the percussion for the orchestra. Frank`s last trip is to Las Vegas where he meets up with Rosie (Drew Barrymore), a succesful profesional dancer. Frank realizes that his children have all been lieing to him and that they are not all fine, but he wonders why they can`t trust him and figures it is because he pushed his kids too hard.
Robert De Niro gives one of his best performances in years, and it was good to see him in this kind of role. Drew Barrymore also gives a great performance and she seemed the closest with her father, and perhaps the only one who really had chemistry with him. It was hard to beleive his relationship with his other children, especially with Kate Beckinsale`s character who was too distant. Sam Rockwell gives a good performance, he is a great actor, but he was much better in Moon. The movie has a slow start, but after a while you begin to get involved in the story and wonder what the kids are hiding. Frank has worked hard all his life making telephone cables in order to give his kids a good education and has really pushed them, perhaps a bit too much. Ironically that communication media is not used anymore by his children who all use wireless cellphones, and it represents the communication between them that has been broken over the years. I think that the main problem the film has is that it tries to resolve everything at the end, and it just doesn`t work that well. However, the story is well told and if you are into these emotional movies then you will probably enjoy this one because it has some good performances and is a very touching movie. The problem I had with it was that it was too formulaic, but still worth it in my opinion.
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