Review: An Unfinished Life

If you put Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman in the same movie, chances are good the movie isn't going to completely suck. The last time Redford and Freeman teamed up in a film was 25 years ago in Brubaker, and watching them play off each other in An Unfinished Life made me wish they'd done more films together in the interim. Those two seasoned acting vets could stand in front of a camera just talking for two hours, and it would be entertaining.

Redford portrays Einar Gilkyson, a rugged Wyoming rancher crippled with grief over the death of his only son, Griff, who died in a car wreck a decade earlier. Griff's wife, Jean (Jennifer Lopez), was driving the car, and Einar has never forgiven her for killing his son. Einar spends his days on his dilapidated ranch, caring for his best friend Mitch Bradley (Freeman), who was badly mauled by a grizzly bear.

Einar is basically just going through the motions of life, having lots of half-muttered conversations with himself and talking to his dead son, who is buried on the ranch. Then his daughter-in-law, Jean, shows up with the granddaughter (newcomer Becca Gardner, who looks so much younger than her 15 years, I did a double take on her birth date when I looked it up) he never knew he had.

Within the first ten minutes of this film, I wasn't watching Redford and Freeman, I was absorbed in the complex relationship between their characters - it's so refreshing when films explore the deep love and friendship that can exist between men, without getting all homophobic about it. One of the funniest parts of the film is when Einar's granddaughter mistakenly assumes that the two men are gay lovers.

I liked elements of An Unfinished Life very much. There was some great acting going on - Redford and Freeman, as aforesaid, stole the show whenever they were onscreen at the same time. They captured perfectly this relationship between a rancher and his ranch hand and best friend, two men who have worked and lived together for most of their adult lives: the crankiness, the half-spoken sentences that don't need to be finished, the flashes of understanding that passed between them.

One of the things I didn't like about the film was the predictability around what was going to happen with Jean. At the beginning of the film, we see Jean in the aftermath of an altercation with her uber-asshole boyfriend, Gary (Damian Lewis). Jean's daughter, Griff, reminds her mother that she promised they would leave if it happened again, so Jean makes good on her promise and gets her daughter out of there. I knew as soon as I saw the bruise on Jean's face at the start of this scene how it was going to play out, more or less: Jean runs away to Einar's ranch, and eventually the abusive boyfriend follows her there. This is the bit that had the most potential to turn mawkish. Thankfully, the focus of the story isn't about a woman escaping an abusive relationship, but why she ended up there to begin with, and how she and her father-in-law heal the rift that has divided them since the man they both loved died, leaving his young life unfinished.

We see Einar, early on, kicking ass in his favorite diner when some doltish ranch hands get inappropriate with the waitress, Nina (Camryn Manheim, in an excellent turn). So we know, of course, that if Gary comes calling (and of course he will, because the story has to have some conflict and excitement), Einar is going to be doing some ass-kicking. Josh Lucas has an easy, underused turn as the town's sexy sheriff-turned-lover-of-Jean, Crane Curtis.

The other predictable and potentially sugary-sweet element was the relationship between Einar and his granddaughter, but Gardner is solid little actress, and between her and Redford they keep the heart-string-tugging violins at bay. Lopez, despite her annoying J-Lo persona, is actually not a bad actress - she was outstanding in 1998's Out of Sight - and she delivers pretty well in this film. The chemistry between her and Lucas just wasn't there at all, though, which made the relationship between them a little hard to swallow.

The heart of this movie is about guilt and forgiveness; the film struggles admirably to deliver the message of that theme without turning into a sappy Lifetime movie, and it largely succeeds. Jean feels guilty about killing her husband by falling asleep while driving at 3AM to get to a rodeo; she has lived her life in the years since punishing herself by being in relationships with abusive men. Einar feels guilt about Mitch getting mauled by the bear while defending one of Einar's calves; now he spends his days caring for his friend.

The bear has been caught and is now residing in a sad little zoo outside town. I've seen little zoos like this on road trips, pathetic, dusty places with wild creatures confined in tiny cages; none of the amenities real zoos have, like an attempt to make a somewhat accurate habitat for the creatures imprisoned there. Mitch's bear is confined to this sad, barren cage, and he's so depressed and sad-looking, even Mitch feels sorry for him.

There are some predictable set-ups in the script, especially around the theme, and the script in general could have been tighter. When Einar says early on in the script that there are no accidents, that saying something was an accident is just what guilty people do to make themselves feel better, you just know that later in the film he's going to learn a lesson around that, and, of course, he does.

Overall, though, in spite of its predictable moments, I enjoyed An Unfinished Life. The acting was strong enough to overcome the script's weaknesses, and helmer Lasse Hallström (What's Eating Gilbert Grape, The Cider House Rules, Chocolat) mostly manages to avoid the slippery slope of sentimentality he sometimes likes to cruise down in his films. 

Redford, at 68, can still pull off the whole ruggedly handsome thing with understated verve, and the scenes between him and Freeman and him and Gardner largely carry the film. I would have liked to have seen more of Manheim, and I would have loved for the script to have her and Redford in a relationship, but, alas, I'll just have to imagine that maybe that happens later down the road.

The ending is predictably nearly tied-up and sunshiny, but what do you expect for a film like this? Is An Unfinished Life a daring, edgy, experimental film? Nah. But it's a great film for a girl's night out, or to take your mom to, or even for a date night (unless your date is more likely to enjoy something like 9 Songs than the relationship between a crusty old rancher and his friend and granddaughter). It doesn't break any new ground or do anything really spectacular, but it is a solid, mostly enjoyable film, and in this year of unadulterated crapola - (The Dukes of Hazzard, Stealth, Undiscovered, The Underclassman, to name but a smattering of the tripe we've been subjected to lately, kids -  "solid if a bit predictable" isn't necessarily a bad thing.