"The Upside of Anger"

Directed by: Mike Binder

Starring: Joan Allen, Kevin Costner, Erika Christensen, Keri Russell and Alicia Witt

Rated: R (for adult language, brief violence and drug use)

Running time: 117 minutes

Best suited for: sentimental voyeurs, family-in-crisis addicts

Least suited for: those seeking pyrotechnics or a high body count

Acorn’s Rating Guide:

Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) is unhappily living out happily-ever-after as a middle-aged housewife in the ritzy suburbs of Detroit. Her four preoccupied daughters, who see Mom and Dad merely as checkbooks with a stipulation attached, are eager to be free of the nest. The eldest Wolfmeyer daughter will soon be graduating from college and the youngest has discovered her own sexuality. They confide in Dad, but rarely in Mom, who’s grown bitter in a seemingly loveless marriage. Her daughters balk at and taunt her, and Terry has recently turned to the bottle as a comfort and companion.

The day that Terry has dared to happen eventually comes—and, submerged in vodka, she tells her daughters that their father has abandoned them, having left for Sweden with his new young secretary. Terry tries to come off as aloof, although she’s anything but, and the anger that roils beneath the surface has nowhere to go.

Next-door neighbor Denny (Kevin Costner) is a hard-drinking ex-baseball player, a World Series winner, now a radio talk show DJ who refuses to talk about baseball. Something like a tolerated pest to Terry, he soon becomes her drinking buddy—two lost souls with little in common but the futile regrets of what might have been.

"The Upside of Anger" is a poignant look at a family’s struggle to cope with a parent’s vacancy, of one mother’s attempt to keep her family intact while her own life shatters around her.

This is the stuff of melodrama—and bad melodrama particularly—but what keeps "Upside" fresh and alive are fine tightwire performances by Joan Allen and a nicely subdued Costner. What prevents the film from wallowing in its own morass is surprisingly articulate dialogue and the growth of its characters.

Terry is not a particularly likeable woman—but she can’t fathom why. She tries to be likeable and succeeds only after teetering on the edge of hopelessly unredeemable. Alternately, even her noblest efforts are often thwarted. Her four daughters are plagued by such a degree of self-absorption that Terri’s vodka plunges seem the logical antidote. To director Mike Binder’s credit, there are no villains in "Upside," and no heroes—simply ordinary people with varying abilities to cope.

Costner, who’s cornered the market on the fading, aging athlete, is comfortable in Denny’s ex-jock persona. Denny isn’t deep, he isn’t smart, and yet he freely admits his casualty status. He is both openly and awkwardly attracted to the suddenly single Terry, but even after massive bouts of Budweiser, he manages to keep his distance. It is obvious to each that they are more suited to drinking-buddy status than sexual partner.

But when family life—even a family as fractured as the Wolfmeyers—begins to bloom around bachelor Denny, the chemistry changes. Take away the numbing effects of alcohol and both Terry and Denny are surprised to see what lies beneath, what each is capable of feeling and producing.

There are some nice twists in "Upscale"—even an out-of-nowhere surprise that utterly completes Terry’s misery. Yet unlike the inconceivable twist in, say, "Million Dollar Baby," this one ultimately settles over the film as a necessary ingredient in Terry’s cycle of suffering and acceptance. It is, in retrospect, a brilliantly conceived notion—a payoff moment worth the price of admission.

A few loose threads are left hanging—most notably the four Wolfmeyer daughters’ unquestioning dismissal of their father. One writes gently veiled letters and the others fret, but they’re all eager to get on with their own lives, to adjust to the seemingly hip prestige of being children "from a broken home." Teenaged daughters, even preoccupied ones, are notoriously close to even the worst of fathers, but the Wolfmeyer girls shuck their dad’s memory like last year’s wardrobe. And Terry’s final scenes unfold too quickly, without the depth and insight that one might have hoped for. But to comment further would to stray dangerously close to spoiling this film—and shame on any critic who can’t recommend "Upside" without treading on its worthy ambition.

In a nutshell: "The Upside of Anger" is a smartly told, sassy, and sometimes uncomfortable glimpse at one mother’s attempt to cope. It is less a romantic comedy (there is little real romance here, little comedic intent) than a brutally honest interpretation of loss and resentment and the bumpy road to recovery. While perhaps not a film best suited for the macho mentality, it remains a film worth seeing.