If you’re thinking this is the 1977 film The Greatest, which was about the life of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, you’ve definitely come to the wrong DVD. This intense soap opera covers the weighty issues of death, loss and birth. The film is a reworking of Robert Redford’s 1980 Best Picture winner Ordinary People, combined with a touch of last year’s best screenplay winner Precious.
Written and directed by newcomer Shana Feste, The Greatest gives us the sad story of the Brewer Family, who are dealing with a monumental tragedy. Allen (Pierce Brosnan) and Grace (Susan Sarandon) Brewer lost their eldest son Bennett (Aaron Johnson) in a car accident. The grieving parents struggle through their misery and try to find a way to hold it together.
Allen tries so hard to be strong for his family that he alienates Grace with his seemingly dispassionate calm. She scolds him for never having cried. Grace herself has become obsessed with finding out about the last minutes of her son’s life. A convenient (and very unlikely, considering the remoteness of the accident site) surveillance camera shows that Bennett lived for 17 minutes after his fatal collision. Before dying he spoke to the truck driver (Michael Shannon) who hit him and so Grace wants to know what her son was thinking as he died. But the truck driver has slipped into a coma so Grace haunts his bedside waiting for him to awaken.
Their other son Ryan (Johnny Simmons) has been forgotten in the turbulence. He is a recovering drug addict who resented good-boy Bennett’s seeming perfection. Ryan attends a support group for teenagers who have lost a family member and becomes attracted to Ashley (Zoe Kravitz) who claims to be dealing with her sister’s suicide but has other issues.
Into this whole familial tragedy comes Rose (Carey Mulligan), Bennett’s ex-girlfriend who is pregnant with Bennett’s child. Rose has her own family issues, since her mother is also an addict, which leads Grace to believe that Rose is possibly lying about the paternity of her unborn baby. Is Rose pulling a fast one on the family? Allen doesn’t think so.
Allen readily accepts Rose and quickly forms a bond with her because the idea of Bennett having a son softens the blow of Bennett’s death in Allen’s eyes. But Rose feels threatened by Allen’s relationship with the young girl. Allen has already had an affair with one of his co-workers and Grace, being emotionally fragile, becomes paranoid about Allen and Rose growing so close.
The subject matter of The Greatest is obviously not light escapist entertainment. It’s a powerful and mostly unyielding journey into the heart of grief and loss. While it does have a positive aspect about one door opening after another closes (The family loses a son but a surrogate daughter carrying their grandchild appears to fill the void) the no-holds-barred drama is often grimly unpleasant to sit through. Some of the scenes are a bit over-the-top in their diction of a family on the edge, such as when Allen deliberately dumps the hysterical Helen into the ocean surf.
The performances are top-notch. Pierce Brosnan’s button-down depiction of a father struggling with all his waning strength to be unflinchingly brave is one of the finest in his career, second only to his brilliant turn as the disgraced British Prime Minister in Ghost Writer. Susan Sarandon is, as always, wonderful. She embodies a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown with a deft mixture of pathos and panic. Carey Mulligan gives a laid back performance, becoming the calm in the heart of the emotional storm.
The Greatest is not as effective as Ordinary People, which covered the same ground, but it’s still an intense experience. For anyone who’s lost a child, this film is sure to hit a painful note. Freshman director/writer Feste acquits herself nicely holding it all together. She benefits by having the presence of superb actors on board. While there are some overblown moments, the excellent performances make up for any weaknesses in the script.
DVD Bonus Features
The DVD contains a section of deleted scenes. There is also a collection of interviews with Feste, Brosnan, Sarandon, Mulligan and Simmons.
"The Greatest" is on sale July 13, 2010 and is rated R. Drama. Written by Shana Feste. Starring Carey Mulligan, Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon.
