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You
Can Count On Me
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Within the first moments of You Can Count On Me, writer-director Kenneth Lonergan lets us know that he is about to approach familiar situations in refreshingly unfamiliar ways. A tragic family accident occurs as it would in life, without any warning or dramatic build-up. Then there is a cut to the bad news being delivered to the remaining members of the family: since we more or less know the words that will be spoken, Lonergan replaces them with a heavy look and a long silence. You Can Count On Me triumphantly rehabilitates what has become known as the character-centred drama in contemporary American cinema. Lonergan is unashamed of this piece's one-act play origins; he sticks essentially to modest scenes of interaction and dialogue, and refuses the temptation to unduly open out proceedings or dress the images up with fiddly tricks. Yet, at every moment, there is a subtlety informing what Lonergan emphasises and what he elides, giving the film a special tension and unpredictability. Equally surprising are the directions the modest plot takes; by multiplying characters and alternating between their various intrigues, Lonergan keeps us guessing as to exactly where situations will land, and whether they will twist to comedy or drama. Best of all, the film keeps its "moral" or theme implicit, forcing us to make the necessary connections. With a bow to John Cassavetes' Love Streams (1984), You Can Count On Me focuses primarily on an adult brother and sister, Sammy (Laura Linney) and Terry (Mark Ruffalo). Where Sammy, a resident of small-town Scotsville, leads an ordered, rational, calm life, to the point of being a control freak, Terry is one of those vagrant screw-ups we recognise from the annals of American drama: surly, non-conformist, good-hearted but something of a wild child. The rapprochement of Sammy and Terry, after so many years apart, is not going to be easy. Between them, both easing and complicating the tension, is Terry's little son, Rudy (Rory Culkin). In an amusing and wise reversal of roles, it is often Rudy who expresses the most adult reading of situations, while his mother and uncle regress into the unfinished emotional business of decades past. At the same time, as we come to realise, it is the very ability of these adults to be childish that allows them to negotiate personal change. Lonergan overlays two emotional trajectories. For Terry, the challenge is to assume responsibility over his own actions as well as those of others – and to convince everyone around him, so quick to think the worst, of this new-found maturity. For Sammy, the challenge is to loosen up, fool around, break a few rules – although the choice of her bank boss, Brian (Matthew Broderick), as co-conspirator in this anarchy leads to some droll complications. The film takes familiar stereotypes and gently turns them upside down – especially in the case of the kindly priest, Ron, played by Lonergan himself. Only Broderick, in a role that reprises his new screen persona of the harried, fatally limited everyman from Election (1999), is in danger of giving a two-dimensional performance. Both Linney and Ruffalo offer rich, superbly nuanced portrayals; they are helped at every point by Lonergan's well-crafted dialogue and his discreet but intelligent decisions about how to stage and edit scenes. © Adrian Martin June 2001 |
