The scene obviously is meant to hint at deeper issues - but Einar, buddy, it's just a plate. Einar, in turn, explodes, ranting about how some things are irreplaceable. At a point when Lopez's character is beginning to settle in and win Einar over with her hard work and determination, she accidentally breaks a plate.
To be fair, most scenes don't give her much to work with. Jean Gilkyson needed a consistent and compelling performance to elevate her story above the material, and Lopez doesn't work that kind of magic. Together they bring the dynamics of spousal abuse to life beautifully and tragically.
She is, however, very good when paired with Damian Lewis. Given a character who is little more than a sketch to begin with, she delivers her lines half-heartedly, with very little visible concern about her circumstances, very little love for her daughter and very little believable anger at her father-in-law. Basically, Jennifer Lopez isn't very good. Griff's frustration with her mother (Lopez) is never convincing, nor is the relationship between Lopez and the sheriff, nor the one between Lopez and Redford. If the film had been filled with these kinds of performances, it would have been enough to elevate it. Young Becca Gardner has flashes of charisma. Camryn Manheim, despite having few lines, hints at a deep history with all the people of her small town. Redford and Freeman create a real camaraderie between their characters, and Redford is good stumbling toward love for his granddaughter and toward acceptance of his son's early death. Unfortunately, An Unfinished Life misses these marks more often than it hits. It's a tough win, really, because there's no plot to bail the audience out, leaving all our attention poised on characterization and acting. At their worst (Something To Talk About), though, the formula is reduced to its schmaltzier elements, with unimaginative writing and lackluster dramatic performances. That's due in part to the fact that, you know, the plots are nothing remarkable, almost like the plots of real lives. These kinds of films, at their best, (Chocolat and What's Eating Gilbert Grape, in this list) feel achingly like real life. They were all about people with problems coming to understand other people with problems, the situations were just switched. Of his films - which include What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, The Shipping News, The Cider House Rules, and Something To Talk About - only Chocolat had anything near an original plot. No one knows that better than Lasse Hallstr & ouml m, who has essentially made a career out of it.
#AN UNFINISHED LIFE SET LOCATION MOVIE#
You can make a perfectly wonderful movie with the tackiest and most rehashed plot.
#AN UNFINISHED LIFE SET LOCATION TV#
So it plays like the archetype for TV movies (even having a love-hate relationship with bears isn't new), but that alone isn't enough to sink a film completely. I think I've touched on them all, but if you can think of another catharsis-whoring television movie clich & eacute, please e-mail me. It highlights the horror of intimate partner violence, the difficulties of being a single mother, the resentment of having been spurned by your family and the unending grief of losing a child. The basic plot elements of An Unfinished Life bear striking resemblance to every movie of the week you've ever watched on television. Those words are the impetus for a move that will reunite a fractured family and, we hope, heal wounds that have destroyed countless lives across several generations - and so on, and so forth. "You promised this would be the last time," the girl says, once Gary has left. Jean Gilkyson's (Jennifer Lopez) boyfriend Gary (Damian Lewis) beats on her, while her daughter, Griff (Becca Gardner), watches. Somewhere in Iowa, a different kind of struggle is taking place. Mitch has recently been mauled by a bear and is all but completely crippled. Also dutifully, he tends to Mitch (Morgan Freeman), the hired hand who has been working the ranch with Einar for decades. Somewhere in Wyoming, Einar Gilkyson (Robert Redford) is tending dutifully to his ranch, which seems unkempt and undermanned.
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