Grace Is Gone (2007/Genius/Weinstein DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: B-
John
Cusack has too often been playing comic dopes or variants on his late 1980s
teen image, grown up, resulting in a career that has not been as vibrant as it
should be for someone with his talent and appeal. He is a survivor, something he gets to play
on in James C. Strouse’s military family drama Grace Is Gone (2007) as a father whose wife is serving in the
military while he works at a “home store” taking care of their two daughters.
The title
at first refers to the absent mother, then when she is killed in action, dead
one. That leaves Stanley (Cusack) having
to break the bad news to his sensitive girls, but he is so upset about it that
he decides not to tell them yet, delay it and take them away with him on a
sudden amusement park trip among other things.
It also gives Cusack a chance to show his true range as an actor and
painfully so in the saddest way, fully convincing as a husband who believes in
her service to her country and the 1980s ethos that created the new myth slowly
implode, whether the makers intended this or not. The result is one of last year’s most
underrated films, possibly censored by certain Right Wing interests for its
honesty and irony.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is a little poor for a new release, with
limited detail and color, but only a check against a future Blu-ray version
will tell us how much is the master and how much the DVD. The Dolby Digital 5.1 is not very active as
this is a dialogue-based drama, but it is not a bad recording, though dialogue
can be soft at times. Extras include
three featurettes and a trailer.
- Nicholas Sheffo
