In a Hollywood where an actor dare not risk shattering the illusion that, God forbid, they may be in their autumn years, 66 year-old Robert De Niro accomplishes what may be his bravest role of the last two decades by simply choosing to play a real old man in Kirk Jones’ Everybody’s Fine.
De Niro is Frank Goode, a recently-retired widower who struggles with an emotional disconnect from his adult children – the result of 30 years as the bread winner, not the problem solver. When all three children cancel a planned get-together, Frank ignores doctor’s advice and heads off on a cross-country trip to see each separately – artist David (Austin Lysy), orchestra conductor Robert (Sam Rockwell), advertising exec Amy (Kate Beckinsale) and dancer Rosie (Drew Barrymore).
Each of these actors give their all in one-on-one scenes opposite De Niro. (It’s lovely to be reminded that Beckinsale can offer so much more than what we’ve seen recently). All the siblings have dark issues with which they are dealing and none expect 'Dad’ to understand; they all lead very different lives yet share a superficial relationship with their father borne more out of respect and fondness than emotional closeness.
The film echoes Alexander Payne’s About Schmidt (2002), and it’s a sad indictment that Hollywood hasn’t explored mature-age emotions in any great depth for over eight years (The Bucket List? I don’t think so...). Some critics have attacked the film as being mawkishly sentimental, but Everybody’s Fine is a film about the most melancholy of emotions – an aging patriarch who knows the time to connect fully with the most cherished things in his life may no longer be measured in years or months, but in days. Small bridging scenes that offer insight into how Frank remembers the small children his full-grown offspring once were are manipulative, of course, but impossible to resist.
It will be hard (harder) to watch Robert De Niro in the pay-cheque roles from here on in, especially the upcoming Meet The Fockers sequel, Little Fockers, in which he again plays the tough daddy role. As Frank Goode, he explores and exposes every repressed emotional beat with the merest of vocal inflections or physical manifestations; Frank is one of De Niro’s least mannered, most convincing 'real person’ roles ever. It will challenge the toughest cynic not to be emotionally involved in the hospital-bed scene, when the saddest of family secrets is revealed to Frank; the actor’s expression of grief and the respect director Jones affords his performance is very moving. One of the actor’s most insular roles ultimately proves to be one of his greatest achievements.
