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The Upside of Anger (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:167
Fresh:122
Rotten:45
Average Rating:6.7/10
Consensus: A comedy/ drama for grown-ups, with fine performances by Joan Allen and Kevin Costner.
Runtime: 2 hrs 1 min
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $18,742,061
Synopsis: Starring Joan Allen, THE UPSIDE OF ANGER spans three years of a woman's life following her husband's sudden disappearance. Terry Wolfmeyer (Allen), an affluent suburban Detroit wife and mother,... Starring Joan Allen, THE UPSIDE OF ANGER spans three years of a woman's life following her husband's sudden disappearance. Terry Wolfmeyer (Allen), an affluent suburban Detroit wife and mother, goes from a paragon of sweetness to a volcano of rage in the wake of her husband's desertion; she thinks he has jetted off to Sweden with his Swedish secretary. Barely holding it together for her four daughters (distinctively played by Alicia Witt, Keri Russell, Erika Christensen, and Evan Rachel Wood), Terry fitfully adjusts while befriending Denny Davies (Costner), a retired baseball player and radio personality up the street who shares her love of the all-day cocktail hour. Allen is a delightful force, displaying serious comedic talent and effortlessly stealing each scene. She glows with an unaffected sexiness, while Costner shines as the seemingly all-wrong man who turns out to be completely right. Writer-director Mike Binder casts a keenly perceptive eye on male-female relationships, a topic he also explored in his critically-acclaimed HBO series THE MIND OF THE MARRIED MAN. Binder also appears in a role as Denny's producer Shep, a shallow womanizer with surprisingly resonant reasons for being shallow. As the three years pass, Terry and her daughters are confronted with varying individual situations, choices, and compromises, with moments that ring true in ways both moving and strikingly funny. THE UPSIDE OF ANGER is an ideal combination of drama and humor. [More]
Starring: Joan Allen, Kevin Costner, Erika Christensen, Alicia Witt
Starring: Joan Allen, Kevin Costner, Erika Christensen, Alicia Witt, Evan Rachel Wood, Keri Russell, Mike Binder
Director: Mike Binder
Director: Mike Binder
Producer: Alex Gartner, Jack Binder, Sammy Lee
Composer: Alexandre Desplat
Studio: New Line Cinema
Reviews for The Upside of Anger
Costner takes over a Jack Nicholson part and perfectly engages us. Not every middle-aged star needs Tarantino to have a career resurrected.
Writer/director Mike Binder scripts sarcastic humor and dialogue that just avoids being glib, thanks in part to a pair of rich performances.
Even though Binder’s characters are all gems, the filmmaker needs to further hone his storytelling craft.
Allen's great performance eventually is neutered in obeisance to the false notion that fictional characters must go through a redemptive arc for their stories to be of value.
[Binder's] film is a raging morass of misogyny, a self-congratulatory exercise in mental masturbation.
A wonderful, sophisticated romantic comedy about the resilience of love in the face of competing emotions.
Always more than a mere by-numbers domestic drama, The Upside of Anger is desperately, darkly funny, with dialogue to, er, die for, and a perfect cast.
Binder creates a familiar, complex, realistic, deeply human dynamic between his characters, and provides each actor rich layers of feeling and humor with which to create them.
Admit it: You thought Kevin Costner’s best performances were miles behind him.
Though this is not the type of serious film likely to win many awards, Allen gives one of her best performances.
Both Costner's character and performance merit comparison to Jack Nicholson's Oscar-winning portrayal of a gone-to-seed astronaut in Terms of Endearment.
An engrossing and well-acted psychodrama about the toxic side-effects of anger, a potent and volatile emotion.
Binder has created a middle-aged female protagonist of rare depth and complexity, a jilted wife played by the great Joan Allen with screen-grabbing gusto.
Latest News for The Upside of Anger
June 08, 2006:
Sandler to Star in 9/11 Drama
Big-screen comedian Adam Sandler is going to get a little more serious for his next role. He'll be starring in Mike Binder's 9/11 drama "Empty City," along with Don... More...
February 21, 2006:
Actress Trio Joins Sandler's "Reign"
Actresses Liv Tyler, Saffron Burrows, and Jada Pinkett-Smith will be joining Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle in "Reign O'er Me," a post-9/11 drama from "Upside of... More...
January 11, 2006:
Chicago Critics Pick Their 2005 Winners (and Iowa!)
The Chicago Film Critics Group announced their nominees just before New Years' Eve, and they reconvened this week to vote on their year-end favorites. Also, the Iowa Film... More...
January 10, 2006:
Online Film Critics Offer Their Annual Nominations
The OFCS, which is hosted right here at Rotten Tomatoes and (full disclosure) includes yours truly as a member, announced their year-end nominations yesterday ... and we hope... More...
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