You Can Count on Me

Oscar-nominated Laura Linney (The Truman Show) is astonishing as a devoted small-town mom and straight-laced older sister of a chaotic drifter (Mark Ruffalo, Committed) in this quiet, uncomplicated movie about the nuances and limits of familial affinity. When her embittered, misery junkie brother comes to town to ask her for money, she's hoping to tie him down for a while and help break his years-long free fall. But Ruffalo matches Linney's determined-to-be-hopeful intensity with his character's percolating contempt for life as he habitually sabotages himself, giving the film its narrative arc of sibling strife. Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan brings such authentic humanity to this relationship it would be hard to not feel involved and invested in these people's lives. Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)