7/23/2023 0 Comments An unfinished life locationMark Spragg’s tidy adaptation of his novel, collaborating with Virginia Korus Spragg, pushes didactic forgiveness and family-values themes for all they’re worth in the last act, which may get soft-hearted viewers sobbing. In what should be her biggest scene - a fight with Einar about her husband’s death - the camera offers mostly closeups of Redford reacting as she shouts at him from offscreen.Īll in all, ursine thesp Bart the bear offers the most memorable turn of the lot. Editing seems designed to disguise her weaknesses by reducing her role to a number of backlit closeups that let her look pretty. Lopez’s perf, however, is strictly one-note. Young Gardner has a tough tenderness, and she brings out the best in her older male co-stars. Meanwhile, Freeman is, as he was in “Million Dollar Baby,” the pic’s tragedy-worn Jiminy Cricket, looking noble in adversity and uttering wise advice from his sickbed. Redford, who seems to be putting his own laconic spin on a part that feels like it was written for Clint Eastwood, doesn’t muster anything much more than dignity and manly grumpiness, but at least he can really throw a lasso. Thesping is not up to the usual Hallstrom standard. Viewers will have seen too much of all this for it to feel fresh too many better modern Westerns lauding down-home values too many pics where a liberated animal is the symbol of redemption too many Lasse Hallstrom middle-brow tales about misshapen or outcast folk who form makeshift families (“The Cider House Rules,” “The Shipping News,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”) and one too many stories where Redford co-stars with a bear (“Jeremiah Johnson”) and J-Lo struggles to regain audience sympathy by playing a victim of abuse (“Enough”) with perfectly coiffed hair and a decorative bruise that color-coordinates with her wardrobe. When Einar escorts Gary out of town at gunpoint, Gary sneers, “You’ve seen too many Westerns, old man,” to which Einar retorts, “That doesn’t exactly work in your favor.”īut then again, Gary has a point. Meanwhile, Gary starts skulking round the ranch’s edge, smoking cigarettes to signal his irredeemable nature. The bear that mauled Mitch is captured and stuck in a makeshift zoo. Sure enough, two ferocious creatures resurface. Jean gets a job as a waitress in the town’s only restaurant working alongside good broad Nina (Camryn Manheim), and starts knocking boots with local sheriff Crane (Josh Lucas) after warning him to look out for her ex, Gary. The drawn-out middle act observes this newly formed family as they tentatively establish bonds, particularly between young Griff, her gruff granddad and his friend whom, in the pic’s funniest scene, she assumes is his gay lover. Her latest boyfriend, Gary (Freeman’s “Dreamcatcher” co-star Damian Lewis), hit her one too many times, hence her trek to the old homestead. Since then, Jean has been dragging her 11-year-old daughter Griff (newcomer Becca Gardner) around the country. Jean had been driving, and Einar never forgave her. The spread’s delicate emotional ecosystem is suddenly upset by the arrival of Jean Gilkyson (Jennifer Lopez), Einar’s errant daughter-in-law, who ran off pregnant 12-odd years ago after Einar’s son Griffin, the “unfinished life” of the title, was killed in a car crash. The two get by on stoicism for Einar, morphine for Mitch and mutually sustaining old men’s banter. In Ishawooa, Wyo., former alcoholic farmer Einar Gilkyson (Redford) takes care of his few remaining animals and his best friend Mitch (Morgan Freeman), a former ranch hand who suffered terrible injuries after being attacked by a bear.
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