Movies

In one of the many manifestations of the power of the indie flicks during the past ten years, rebellious young Terry Prescott (Mark Ruffalo) comes to visit his sister Samantha (Laura Linney) and her son Rudy (Rory Culkin), upsetting their normal lives. "You Can Count on Me" is very much a script- and character-driven movie, a far cry from a Hollywood cliché movie. As for the characters themselves, Samantha and Rudy are quite respectable; Terry is hard to classify, as he almost seems to be wasting his life but is the sort of rebel who we all wish to be; Matthew Broderick - as Samantha's boss - made my skin crawl, and I suspect that you'll feel the same.All in all, this is certainly a movie that I recommend, and I'm eager to see Kenneth Lonergan's next movie.

It's like a breath of fresh air to see a drama driven by characters rather than by a typical Hollywood plot. If this were any other drama, someone would get cancer, the little boy would go missing, the stars would look like supermodels, and the characters would talk with a screenwriter's emotional phrase. Here, the characters think, act and talk like real people. They could be us. That's the genius of this movie. If you want fantasy, don't see this film. If you want to be touched by great acting and a wonderful plot that shows the complexities of human relationship, see this film. This isn't Terms of Endearment, Steel Magnolias or One True Thing. This is real.

A quality movie with great performances. Don't get put off by the seemingly bland storyline (a brother and sister, bereaved of their parents, grow up very differently; havoc ensues when the brother comes to stay with his single-mother-sister and her son). Laura Linney turns in a well-deserved Oscar-nominated performance and the script distinguishes itself throughout - mostly for what is left unsaid rather than actually spoken. Characterisation is not only convincing but draws us in because of the very lack of perfection of the characters - these are people with their faults trying to do their best - in very different ways.