When Everything Is Not Enough

A good helping of critical praise was heaped on last year's small independent film, Everything Must Go. It stars Will Ferrell as a lapsing alcoholic who loses his job on the same day his wife kicks him out of the house, leaving all his possessions on the lawn. The 90-minute film is about his slow journey to acceptance of what has happened, as shown externally by his decision to sell off his stuff in a yard sale.

I'm on the fence about Will Ferrell as an actor. I don't like him at all when he's in stupid mode, stripping down for a cheap laugh. But he has a more intelligent mode of humor as well, and has shown some decent dramatic chops too (in films like Stranger Than Fiction), so I figured this might be worth a shot.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn't really seem to amount to much. It's too dark and dry to include too many jokes, but it's too simple a premise to say anything really profound. The main character is simultaneously pitiable for his predicament, and deplorable for the role he had in its making; he's hard to root for or against.

Really, the movie feels like an experimental one-act play. It's even mostly confined to one "set," the front lawn of his former house. And as a play, it feels like the playwright needed to "workshop" it a bit more. The movie doesn't really have a message or a point of view, but plays out as perhaps some episode from someone's actual life, where the writer said "hey, that would make a good movie" without really dressing it all up for the occasion.

Will Ferrell is good enough in his role, and the cast includes some other good performers, including Laura Dern and Stephen Root. It's not bad. There's just not much to it, and it becomes boring far too quickly. I'd call it a C-.

Really, I'm not sure how much hype small movies like this really get, but if you've heard any, don't believe it.