Every couple of years, Will Ferrell makes a movie that reminds his detractors that he can act. Stranger Than Fiction is my favorite of these more serious ventures, but Everything Must Go is definitely no slouch film. The one warning that I must give to Will Ferrell's usual fans is that Everything Must Go is a much darker and slower-paced film than most of his other work. There are laughs, but his character is deeply flawed and tougher to love. Viewers that go in with an open mind, however, will be rewarded with a great character piece about a man who has lost everything and is forced to re-examine his life.
Today is the worst day of Nick Halsey's life. Nick (Will Ferrell) has lost his job, his wife has left him, and his sizable bank account has been frozen. For good measure, his wife has thrown all of his belongings on the front lawn. For awhile, he is content to just sit in his recliner in the front yard and drink beer. Eventually, though, the neighbors start to complain, and the police tell him that he has to clear off his lawn. Nick's good friend and Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor Frank (Michael Pena) buys Nick some time by finding a law that will let him stay on his lawn for a few more days if he has a yard sale. Nick hires Kenny (Christopher Wallace), a neighborhood kid, to help him sell his belongings, and he befriends Samantha (Rebecca Hall), a beautiful woman who has moved in across the street.
For me, one of the most surprising parts of the film was how unwilling they were to make Nick likable. He might have had the worst day of his life, but he deserves everything that is happening to him. His wife isn't heartless. When she got sober, he kept drinking. He cheated on her, and despite providing her with an expensive home and every comfort, he wasn't a good husband. Besides that, Nick's drinking was getting in the way of doing his job. They had paid for him to go to rehab several times, and he still wasn't staying sober, so it is understandable why he was fired.
The screenwriter doesn't try to make Ferrell into the lovable cuddly loser, but they get the audience to care about his character through the characters around him. Christopher Wallace, who plays Kenny, is a really great kid actor who never at any point falls back on that cutesy act that so many child actors rely on. He plays Kenny as smart and level-headed, and if I had to spend a couple days living on my front yard, I would want to hang out with him. I really loved watching this relationship grow between Nick and Kenny as Nick taught Kenny how to throw a baseball and be a good salesman with the yard sale. I cared about Nick because I knew what Nick meant to Kenny.
Aside from Kenny, Samantha is the most significant supporting character in the film. I was concerned early on that they would try to force Nick and Samantha into a romantic relationship, but once it was clear that the filmmakers weren't taking that direction, I was really intrigued by the dynamic between their characters. Nick has lost everything that he viewed as important in his life while Samantha is young and seems to have it all. She is happily married, pregnant, starting a new job, and moving into a new house. I got the impression from Ferrell's performance that Nick wants to be around Samantha to soak up some of that optimism and joy, but at the same time, he resents her life and wants to find the flaws so he can feel better about his failures. The characters are such opposites that it seems like they couldn't possibly get along, but they each have something to offer the other. Nick teaches Samantha to stand up for what she wants and put her foot down with her husband, and Samantha teaches Nick not to give up on himself.
In many ways, Will Ferrell as he's viewed as an actor could be shaped by Everything Must Go the way that Sideways changed how people saw Paul Giamatti as an actor. Giamatti had played many smaller roles in bigger movies and had taken a risk with the under-appreciated American Splendor, but it wasn't until Sideways that people started thinking of him as a serious leading man. Since then, he has played John Adams and won a Golden Globe for Best Leading Actor for Barney's Version. Getting the right roles in Hollywood is so important, and maybe Ferrell will continue the trend of fine actors getting noticed for playing sad alcoholics whose lives are falling apart.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Special features include an audio commentary with Dan Rush and Michael Pena, a making-of featurette, a closer look at Will Ferrell's performance, and a couple of deleted scenes.
"Everything Must Go" is on sale September 6, 2011 and is rated . Comedy, Drama, Indie. Directed by Dan Rush. Written by Dan Rush, Raymond Carver. Starring Christopher Wallace, Michael Pena, Rebecca Hall, Will Ferrell.
