Everybody's Fine

Widowed, Frank Goode is expecting his four children home for Christmas. All of them cancel at the last minute. Against his doctor's advice he takes the train and goes to visit them one by one. At each stop the gap between what he was told and what is true widens: one is fighting addiction, one is separating, one has made a life look like something it is not. In the end Frank sees the real problem: his children could never tell him the truth, because he always expected success and never listened. Kirk Jones wrote and directed. Robert De Niro plays Frank. It is a remake of Giuseppe Tornatore's Italian film of the same name from 1990. Against a budget of 20 to 21 million dollars it took 16.4 million. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 47 percent, with one assessment saying De Niro's calm, charismatic performance nearly saves the film while it has the look and feel of a stereotypical Christmas dramedy. After watching an advance screening Paul McCartney wrote a ballad for it, and the song was nominated for the Best Song Golden Globe. Who it is for: viewers who like family-reunion films and De Niro in a quiet register. Who it is not for: anyone put off by emotional manipulation. The film raises the dose noticeably toward the end.