The Upside of Anger

Joan Allen gives a tour de force performance of emotional wreckage tinged with gloomy humor in writer-director Mike Binder's droll drama about a middle-aged suburban mom who becomes a bitter drunk after being abandoned by her husband of 25 years. Her daughters (Keri Russell, Alicia Witt, Erika Christensen, and Evan Rachel Wood) walk on eggshells--all at loose ends without their mother's strength and support--while her fearlessly forward neighbor, a washed-up, washed-out former baseball star (Kevin Costner), sees in Allen's pain a chance to gain a drinking buddy. Their afternoons of beer (his) and vodka (hers) soon kindle a little hope, sobriety…and cathartic casual sex. Allen mixes rage and wry irony in a performance that, like a roller coaster, is at once scary and entertaining, and Binder (who also plays a 40--something letch sleeping with rebellious 18-year-old Christiansen) creates a complex, familiar, and deeply human dynamic, which helps atone for some unrealistic plot minutia. True-to-life in both its broken psyches and its often-dark humor, The Upside of Anger is what synthetic dramedies like the recent Spanglish and In Good Company only wish they could be. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary by director Mike Binder and star Joan Allen (moderated by filmmaker Rod Lurie), a “making-of” featurette (28 min.), eight deleted scenes with optional commentary (11 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a good extras package for one of the year's best comedies, so far.] (R. Blackwelder)