The Greatest

Writer-director Shana Feste's The Greatest stars Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon as Allen and Grace Brewer, who grieve in diametrically opposing ways when they lose their oldest son in a freak automobile accident. The story opens with teenagers Bennett (Aaron Johnson) and Rose (Carey Mulligan) losing their virginity together and then cuts to an interior shot of the parked car where Bennett declares his love for her, mere seconds before a truck slams into them from behind. Rose survives, becoming pregnant with Bennett's child, and from this point, what tension the film offers centers on how Rose's pregnancy and Bennett's death begin to negatively affect the already quietly dysfunctional Brewers. Unfortunately, Brosnan and Sarandon approach their roles without much enthusiasm or nuance: Allen internalizes his grief (leading to a near-fatal heart attack), while Grace's mourning reaches raving lunatic proportions as she obsesses over her son's last minutes and becomes resentful of her husband's seeming ambivalence. Although The Greatest seems perfectly engineered for maximum tear-jerking efficiency, its flat characterizations, ill-advised attempts at comic relief, and ham-fisted pathos-invoking methods suggest a middling 1970s after-school special. Not recommended. (M. Sandlin)