You Can Count on Me Review
by John Sylva (DeWyNGaLe AT aol DOT com)April 4th, 2002
YOU CAN COUNT ON ME (2000)
Reviewed by John Sylva
Action-packed may not be the way many would describe Kenneth Lonergan's debut feature You Can Count on Me–but if one would look deeper into the possible meanings of the word "action," that person would find You Can Count on Me to be one of the most vividly alive films of 2000. For the action that is found within the film's setting of Scottsville, New York doesn't come trigger-ready with explosions and twists and a dash of Ah-nuld, but with the vitality and pain of human emotion.
Scottsville is the kind of town where Johnny knows Linda and Linda knows Johnny and Frank knows them both and their kids, too, and they all gather at church every Sunday morning and gossip afterwards on the steps about Johnny who might be having an affair with Linda and Frank who might be getting laid off next week. Johnny and Linda and Frank will never leave this town, of course; their high school guidance counselors have already showed them their futures in banking or accounting by the time they're old enough to drive. Once in awhile though, a Hunter comes along: someone who breaks free of conformity's grasp to strive for something higher, something not in Scottsville. Disapproval is abundant back home, of course, but life in one place can only take a person so far, right?
You Can Count on Me is home to this stereotypical yet ever-existing community that could almost be classified as one of evolved Puritanism. Lonergan breathes his fresh air of community through the trio of Laura Linney, Mark Ruffalo, and Matthew Broderick, who all exhale it wonderfully. Linney's Sammy Prescott is the Linda who plays it by the book, Ruffalo's Terry Prescott is the brother Hunter who couldn't watch the town go agog when the bakery has a special on pastries, and Broderick's Brian Everett is the Johnny who's having a secret affair with his conventional-computer-desktop-color bank employ Sammy. While Ruffalo and Broderick are both revelations in their own right, Linney's performance and Lonergan's screenplay are the true marvels of this gem, working almost as an unbeatable tag team whose greatest victory is in the battle between honesty and contrivance. Whereas the film could have taken on the entity of a noble yet flawed familial drama such as 1998's Stepmom, it ultimately prevails because of its refusal to resort to Hollywood sap, even as Sammy feels so much disdain toward her slacker brother that she finds herself violently thrashing her night stand in a fit of tears, or as her son Rudy (Rory Culkin) feels anger toward her for separating him from the spontaneous yet likable Terry. Linney, whose Sammy finds herself caught in a wide array of conflicting emotions as her Brooklyn-dwelling brother comes home in search of financial aid and her various relationships with men begin spiraling out of control, seeps with a genuineness that recalls Meryl Streep's performance in Kramer vs. Kramer, another example of You Can Count on Me's genre gone right. Lonergan, who last co-wrote the mob comedy Analyze This, no doubt was inspired by the aforementioned Kramer; scenes of bonding between Terry, that Hunter, and Rory, that future Frank, recall Dustin Hoffman's showing Justin Henry what it means to have a good time–and often manage to even surpass it. It may be highly comparable to Kramer and every other "small" family drama of merit, but Lonergan's You Can Count on Me has a kindness, an ingenuousness, a freshness that sets it among the finest.
GRADE: A-
Film reviewed April 3rd, 2002.
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