Movie Review - You Can Count on Me

You can count on me" An 8 on the Jay Wolin scale. I had never heard of this movie…saw it at the video store, saw it had won a Sundance Movie Award. Never heard of the actors, but it was fabulous….really moving….it starts with a scene of two people dieing in a car accident and the police coming to tell the children…it then flash forwards some (id guess) 20-30 years to those children grown up, and although it did not address how they handled this tragedy, how they dealt with it, and in some cases didn't deal with it, is always an underlying theme Even after the first scene, you are left to imagine how those children grew up and it tears at you…the writing was great…real person dialogue…like a child not really focusing on the fact that his uncle (mother's brother) and his mother had the same parents. Little things like that…religion, morality, survival vs living, are all topics that hover and are interwoven into the picture….there is no one to root for, there are no heroes, just a character study into a brother and sister, realizing how deep their bonds together will always be…in one moving sentence at the end of the movie this is cemented, you feel their pain and love for each other in one heartfelt moment, even though the words were never said. It was just a true emotional response to each other, looking into each others eyes, and just knowing, the pain that each other had, and the support and love that each of them had for each other whether they could show it outwardly or not. At times it was a conflicting movie for me…For the more stable of the two characters, was someone who was very cold at times, and didn't want to face the emotional conflicts that you knew were always there….you always wonder why she makes the decisions she makes…why she chooses the relationships she does…they all seemed so sterile…I thought it was interesting when she went to the priest and said…wouldn't it be easier if you just said it was a sin and I would go to hell…but the priest didn't oblige her, and forced her to address the issue on her own, which in some ways she does, and in other ways she doesn't…as if life just goes on and on…that is why the movie touched me so much…there were no simple answers for any of the characters. There is not always resolution, or ones that we like, just like in real life…they just went on…the brother who seemed less stable, truly was searching for peace and left himself emotionally open to all things, yet could not or did not show the ability to maintain or even have any type of relationship with another person. He was more open and honest, but also more pained, He was at times irresponsible, but mostly he was kindhearted, again, a conflicted character.Actually neither character really had ever been able to develop a serious relationship with another person…in many ways the openness scared the sister, in many ways it created conflict and pain and confusion. Maybe that is what this movie was about…how we deal with emotional conflict…the ying and yang of it…addressing it fully and not addressing it Addressing it creates pain, and we really don't know that this will create resolution to the conflict…for maybe there is no resolution…and if you don't address it, you may limit your pain, but you limit you ability to respond emotionally at all.really good acting… a movie that flowsa movie that really makes you think…