You Can Count on Me (Laura Linney, Mark Ruffalo) 1/2
Episode plots from the Golden Age of television seemed to be under the deluded impression that all families are nuclear, or should strive to be. They now seem so dated they are downright laughable in the year 2002. Walk into any elementary school class today and the daily role call is bound to have a half dozen hyphenated last names; there will be about a dozen students in the class with only one parent listed on the child's record, and another half dozen are bound to be going through some kind of parental separation, divorce or change of living arrangement within a year or two.
Small wonder that Keneth Lonergan's sleeper hit You Can Count on Me got a lot of buzz in 2000. It's frank without being shocking and genuine without resorting to falsities. It's the kind of film about today's family, not the family of decades past, and about the kinds of flaws we dig out of different members yet choose to work with, through or around in the hope of keeping it all together.
It's written and directed by Lonergan, with an approach not unlike a tapestry that threatens to unweave itself at any moment. He shows an able insight into the human condition by taking what could have been stereotypes and making them either act on their feelings first or, conversely, think first then act. All of the characters want to do what's right, but the compass seems to be spinning in several possible directions.
This is most true in the case of single mother Sammy (Laura Linney), who has finally gotten word from her brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo) after a six-month absence. Sammy wants to help Terry get his life back on track. She wants him to shape up. In the meantime, however, she is having an affair with her meticulous boss (Matthew Broderick), whose wife is expecting. The slippery slope of advice-dispensing seesaws between these two in scenes that are sometimes dynamically charged and sometimes meek, but we see that they always try to listen to each other.
The performances are disarmingly simple, to the point where they must be viewed more as an ensemble success than as individual efforts. I liked Lonergan himself best, in a supporting role as a priest who tries to counsel Sammy and Terry as best he can without spouting religion or saying the wrong thing. I also liked Gaby Hoffman in a contained scene with Ruffalo, and Rory Culkin as the attentive 8-year-old son Rudy.
Some of the story arcs are familiar and the look of the film isn't as claustrophobic as it could be, but the dialogue flows well and has a ring of sincerity in almost every scene. You Can Count on Me puts its characters into a lot of situations that are true to life and thankfully doesn't try to neatly wrap up the decisions or problems at its conclusion. Like life, it basically shows one chapter as the people involved continue to move forward, all the while trying to do the best they possibly can.
