Rating: 
Summary: Destined to become a classic...
Review: This is a truly wonderful movie that any mature adult who has struggled with complicated life situations can appreciate. I totally related to the characters, either as their circumstances reflected my own experiences or those of people I know. This is not a film for teenagers or audiences that get easily bored. This is a very slow moving, quiet film that focuses on the non-eventful and steadily chaotic lives of a few characters. The best part about this film is that it deals with some very adult-oriented issues (sex, drug use, infidelity, etc.) in a remarkably realistic and tasteful way. And there is just enough humor in the movie to keep it from becoming melodramatic; one of my favorite moments is when Sammy is driving back home after spending the evening with her boss at a cheap hotel. While she's driving, she moves back and forth b/t smirking in disgust and laughing with devious excitement....haven't we all had uncertain moments like that?
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinarily Good
Review: This is simply one of the best written and acted films I've ever seen. Mark Ruffalo, Laura Linney, Matthew Broderick, and Jon Tenney, who plays Linney's erstwhile boyfriend Bob, are all dead perfect. But the star is without a doubt Kenneth Lonergan. His dialogue is as distinctive as Mamet's best, but not nearly as idiosyncratic. Every conversation, every awkward silence, every laugh-that's-not-really-a-laugh is so rich, so true. The ending, which feels like one from a great play or short story with its allusion to the title, is beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: About the Music
Review: ... In contrast to the typical Hollywood drama, with its heavy-handed sentimental strings and such, this movie has music that fits the landscape perfectly. Otherwise I echo the praise for this movie. There are very few quiet, character-driven movies of this sort that really work all the way through. This is among the best. There isn't a boring scene. It's probably a lot funnier than most of the reviews make it out to be if you are the sort of person who catches on quickly to things.
Rating: 
Summary: THE BEST THAT HOLLYWEIRD CAN PRODUCE
Review: This movie is a movie about 30 year olds with a three year old mentality. I take that back. They
are amoeba, moving about seeking pleasure, food and sex. This they do with all the morality,
conscience and scruples of single celled organisms. And it's about as interesting as watching
pond water. Ah, but everyone says it's great. What does that tell you about today's critics and
audience? My only guess why is that their lives are so meaningless that a movie like this salves
their sense of self (do amoeba have a sense of self?) See you in the pond.
Rating: 
Summary: Somebody wake me when something happens
Review: I'm sorry if the header is cruel, but I sat through this film twice just to see what I was missing. I still didn't find what all the praise was about. This is a well-meaning film that is well-written and well-acted to show ordinary people with ordinary situations they have to cope with in their lives. But that's the problem. Everything is too ordinary. The main story is about what happens when a grown-up brother and sister are reunited after a lack of communication for awhile. He is somewhat of a drifter, and she is a single mom who works at a bank. The bond they share is that their parents were killed when they were young, and they've depended on each other for mutual support for many years. When the brother returns, she has to make a decision on whether it is a good or bad influence on the son. Complicating matters are the identity of the father of the child, the current dull boyfriend, and a new boss so finicky he needs standard computer screen colors for his entire staff. I'm looking at these events compared to those of my own life. I have four children, and it seems like every week we have some kind of crisis that makes anything that happens in the movie seem tame. I mean, her brother takes the kid out to a pool hall. Maybe if he were turning the kid on to the pot he smokes in the movie it would be a big thing, but I find myself saying that this woman has no problems. While the portrayal of her new boss is dead-on accurate, I myself has a boss that makes this one look like Jim Belushi. I live with my situation, and once again, I'm trying to find out what the problem is here. For the record, I'm not having an affair with my boss, and I guess showing her having her affair is to show her as a flawed, human character. In conclusion, I don't think the brother is so bad, I don't think the boss is THAT bad, and I don't think the mother is that over-protective. If the writers would like some REAL things to be worried about, they can ask my family, or better yet, watch "Malcom in the Middle", which is much more realistic than this film. By the way, my wife watched it with me, and also asked what the big deal was.
Rating: 
Summary: No Surprises
Review: The story is simple with no surprises. As the film opens, we see a middle aged couple talking in a car, then we are confronted with horns and the blinding glare of a trucks headlights. Cut to a home where two children are watching tv with their babysitter: a state policeman gets out of his car and walks up to the steps, and we wonder how he'll deliver the horrific news. As the couple's babysitter answer's the door, the movie cuts to the parents' funeral. We don't hear what the trooper has to say, and we don't need to. "You Can Count On Me" is a drama that doesn't use melodrama or manipulative plot devices to render it's characters. The people that populate this small world are sketched with down-to-earth realism. The interaction between flawed brother and sister Sammy (Linny) and Terry (Ruffalo) is stilted and awkward at times, as director Kenneth Lonergan paces the narrative in vignettes which slowly construct a picture of the people we are watching. The moments of conflict are sharp and brief, but an air of unease always lingers. But it is slow-going. It even appears to lack a conventional dramatic narrative. Things just "occur", like in everyday life. Critics may have praised the film for its simplicity, yet it lacks the spark that could have made it a classic. I'd recommend "Lantana" which is a superior film, though a less credible one that juggles with the same sensitive issues here, but in a way that engages the viewer and stimulates thought. At worst, "You Can Count On Me" often feels like a tele-movie only with slightly higher production values, but if you want 'real' drama I don't see how it could get more real than it does here. *** ½
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Movies of the New Century
Review: I don't exactly get to see every movie that comes out in theatres, so I'm probably making an inappropiately definitive statement with my title. But "You Can Count on Me" is such a beautiful movie that its hard to think of more than a few films that are in its league. It is very simple--a brother returns home to his sister's house in upstate New York, where she lives with her 8-year old son. The movie follows their relationship from there. Obviously, this was an independent film--I believe it premiered at Sundance. There is no violence in the movie, and very little profanity (the R rating is ridiculous--Valenti must drink some of his homemade magic brew before he and the MPAA sit down and rate these things). It is about people. There isn't a lot of plot, a relief in a glut of blockbusters in which every single line of dialogue is used to advance the story, and where we never develop more than a half-hearted connection with the people in it.
I'm stomping on pounded baseball dirt with that comment, I know. But this film really enhances the power of movies to depict real-life people and follow their various crises and situations. The main characters--the sister looks like Jim Carrey's fake wife from "The Truman Show" and the brother looks like that dude from "The Last Castle"(sorry--Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo)--are complex, with flaws and weaknesses. The brother occasionally smokes drugs, and isn't exactly free from the clingy dusts of prison walls, if you know what I mean. The sister has an affair with her married boss, played by Matthew Broderick, the most recognizable actor in the whole thing (if you discount Rory Culkin, who some people may think is Macauly Culkin unaged, like Jonathan Lipnicki). The boss is quite a character--he gets angry when the bank workers use bright colors on their computers, and is a perfect example of a city boy unused to the country.
Linney and Ruffalo deliver Oscar-caliber performances (Linney was nominated--no way Julia Roberts was better than her, although I didn't see Ellen Burstyn talk to a refrigator). Ruffalo is quite a find. I hope that after he pays his mortgage with his "Last Castle" check, he can get more roles like this.
"You Can Count on Me" displays an admirable humanism toward its characters, and is never contemptable toward them. It understands their flaws and celebrates their underlying moral strength. The best scene in the movie comes when the brother takes the son to his estranged father's house, and we see the pain of divorce communicated with one line--the man refuses to acknowledge his own son. As Terry and the father fight, the son stares out the car window.
So, in short, use bland colors on your computer desktop.
Rating:
Summary: Deserves All The Praise!
Review: This is a movie about human relationships. It is well written. Well acted. Well made. It is the sort of film that would have been much less exceptional had it come out in the 1970's but, because the movie-going public are so starved of well acted, sensitive, true to life films, they went crazy over this.
I'd recommend it to absolutely anyone...even to people who usually aren't attracted to a film of this genre...it would appeal to just about anyone with even half a heart.
Rating:
Summary: Sensitive, intelligent, very human film
Review: We have become so used to the loud, high tech movies that Hollywood cranks out these days that when a quiet, gentle, story-driven movie like You Can Count on Me comes along, we don't know quite what to make of it. We have come to expect our movies to be full of explosions, horrific images and people doing the most outrageous things to each other. This film begins with a car wreck, but it is shown in the most minimal way. A couple is driving down a two-lane road at night. A pickup truck starts to back out of a driveway. When the man swerves to avoid it, a speeding track trailer appears in the oncoming lane. We see the couples faces, and then the screen goes black. In the next scene, we see a state trooper knocking on the couple's front door. A baby-sitter opens the door, and in the background, we see a girl and boy watching TV. They are about to find out that they've just become orphans. Initially, I thought the movie was simply too low-budget for its makers to afford a big car wreck. Then I realized that director Kenneth Lonergan had no interest in pumping up our adrenaline. He simply had a story to tell about a brother and a sister and how they related to the world, to themselves and to each other. It is eighteen years later, and the brother and sister are all grown up. Samantha [Laura Linney] has remained in her upstate New York home town. She has a kid named Rudy [Rory Culkin] and a decent job as a loan officer in a local bank. She's a single Mom, having divorced her lout of a husband when Rudy was an infant. She seems to be dependable and perhaps too content with her rather dull life. Rudy is a great kid but seems to miss a male influence in his life. The brother, Brian [Mark Ruffalo], has taken a different road in life. He is restless and moves around a lot. He's lived everywhere from Florida to Alaska. He's not sure that his life is worth very much, but he keeps on trying to find some purpose and meaning. One day Samantha receives a letter from him. He's coming to visit, and she is thrilled. His visit will prove to be an eye-opener for them, as well as for Rudy. Unlike most movies, You Can Count on Me does not build up to one or more life-shattering events. It starts with one - the sudden death of the parents. It then assumes that we are adult enough to know that such an occurrence changes people. Samantha and Brian never make direct reference to the accident, but everywhere their parent seem to lurk in the background. Samantha still lives in her parents' house. The first thing Brian see when he comes home is the cemetery. Samantha's clinging to security and Brian's rootlessness are simply different reactions to the same tragic event. I don't think I have ever seen a movie that more realistically shows the relationship between a brother and a sister or between a fatherless child and his loving but irresponsible uncle. Part of the reason is the script and the direction. The rest of it is the acting by Linney, Ruffalo and Culkin. Each gives his or her character a memorable life of its own. Linney received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but I found Ruffalo's performance to be at least the equal of hers. This is reflective movie, but it is never moody. These characters face obstacles, deal with them and move on, which I think is typical of many people. You Can Count on Me is done on a very human scale, and for those wanting a lot of action, it is not recommended. Everyone else should enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Yup, that's how life is!
Review: Often a film is an escape. It's fantasy with larger-than-life characters. Not so with this small gem. In "You Can Count on Me" we meet real people - people whose lives aren't perfect, whose dreams aren't fancy, and who make mistakes. Nominated for two academy awards in 2000, this can be called a story about relationships. But before you roll your eyes in boredom, thinking this might be too talky, and full of pat psychological answers to every question, just wait. Even if easy answers are not forthcoming, you'll get a chance to glimpse some characters that are so real they could be the neighbors next door or members of your own family. The key relationship here is between a brother and a sister. Orphaned as children, they've grown up counting on each other. Now they are in their thirties. The sister, Laura Linney, is a single mother of an 8-year-old boy, played by Rory Culkin. She works in a bank in their hometown in Upstate New York, and has made arrangements with her boss to use part of her lunch hour time to pick up her child from school and bring him to a baby sitter. The brother, played by Mark Ruffalo, has left home years before. He's a drifter who always needs money, impulsive and boyish and loveable all at the same time. His young nephew adores him, especially when he takes him to a pool hall one night. The sister has stuff to contend with. There's a new branch manager Matthew Broderick, where she works, the kind of idiot boss who forces the staff to refrain from using bright colors on their computer screens because it doesn't represent the dignity of a bank. There's her son wanting to know more about his real father than she wants to tell him. And there's a marriage proposal from her long-term boring boyfriend. The brother's arrival is a catalyst for turmoil. How it all plays out is real. Kenneth Lonergan wrote, directed and even plays a small part of a minister. He's a master of understatement and accuracy of landscape as well as emotions. It's like he just stood back and let the characters drive the plot. It seems simple. It isn't. Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo give performances so fine that they don't even seem to be performing. And young Rory Culkin is perfect as just a regular kid who craves a father figure. The story moves fast, holding my interest throughout. I felt I was right there with these characters and identified with them completely. Highly recommended for everybody. You'll smile wistfully afterwards and think, "yup - that's how life is."
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