Movie: Every Day
Genre: drama
Synopsis: Ned (Liev Schreiber) and Jeannie (Helen Hunt) are a moderately happily married New York couple with two sons: Jonah (Ezra Miller) and Ethan (Skyler Fortgang). Jonah is 16-ish and announced six months ago that he is gay. His mother has accepted this, his father is still struggling with it. Jeannie’s father (Ernie – played by Brian Dennehy) is very sick and wheelchair-bound. Jeannie has just managed the sale of Ernie’s home in the Midwest and moved him into Ethan’s room. Ernie is severely depressed and takes it out on everyone. Jeannie seems to have to spend every waking minute taking her father from doctor to doctor and is not handling the stress well. Liev is a screenwriter in a pressure-cooker of a job. The stress of his job added to the stress at home leads him to become a bit too close to one of his fellow writers – Robin Carla Gugino).
The movie tracks how Jeannie and Ned manage the stress of Jeannie’s dying father, her struggle with her relationship to him, Ned’s struggles at work, Jonah’s struggle with being gay, Ned’s struggle to accept that his son is gay, and Ernie trying to come to terms with his life and his relationship with his daughter.
My two cents: A real gem of a movie. I had never heard of it until I came across it in the movie listings. This is the kind of film that makes sitting through the not-so-good art-house movies worthwhile. I am a fan of Liev Schreiber and Helen Hunt and a bigger fan of Carla Gugino. I have been a fan of Brian Dennehy since I first saw him - in the series premiere of “Dallas” in 1978. All four really delivered. I am used to seeing Brian Dennehy playing the big gruff larger-than-life big-hearted tough guy. It was odd to see him playing a frail sickly dying man struggling with depression. I thought two other performances stood out. One was Skyler Fortgang (Ethan) trying to fit into the world as a gay teenager. The other was Helen Hunt absolutely nailing the guilt-ridden daughter trying to keep her family running while attempting to cope with a dying father who is a virtual invalid. Her character just oozes her desperation as she realizes that she just cannot do it. Not to neglect Carla Gugino – she is a beautiful as ever and was great as the vixen temptress who leads whatt seems to Ned to be the perfect life.
Bottom line: a great movie that covers a variety of story lines and does it extremely well with some commendable acting performances.
[38]
