Friday Movie Review: An Unfinished Life

One thing about Jack Matthews I always expect and rarely find lacking, is his pretentious snob approach to reviewing. But since I, like every human I've ever met, am a snob as well, and thoroughly enjoy any Jennifer Lopez bashing I can get my eyes on, and find just enough of it here to smile upon. Redford is Redford. Pretty much the same character movie after movie, and while Mr. Matthews might find it laudable that the Sundance Kid chose to wrinkle and crinkle "naturally" as he aged, although I haven't clue one as to what naturally is any more, I find it amazing that he has not long since been heralded as an anti-skin cancer model. What with all of the screeching, caterwauling, whistle blowing, don't-go-out-there-it'll kill-you modern day approach to warning us that more than 5 seconds in the sun seals one's doom for all eternity, it's good to see Bobby and Clint flaunting the wrinkles with nary a malignancy. Yeah, shut up and on to the review, gotcha:


Redford, the natural

The revelation of Robert Redford's performance in Lasse Hallstrom's "An Unfinished Life" is not that he's taking on a role appropriate to his age (68), but that he allows himself to look his age.
This may be the first time in his long career that Redford has stood before a camera with his hair mussed. Even in "Brubaker," in which he played a warden who poses as an inmate to study corruption in his own prison, he emerged from his cell as if it were the finest hair salon in Hollywood.

Redford's movie-star vanity has done much to mask the serious acting talent that is the saving grace of Hallstrom's ­often-clichéd movie.

Having decided to grow old with natural grace — i.e., without cosmetic surgery — Redford's lined, sun-dappled and stubbled face makes him immediately believable as Einar Gilkyson, a Wyoming rancher as tough and stubborn as the grizzly bear that mauled his longtime ranch hand and best friend Mitch Bradley (Morgan Freeman).

The two men share a ramshackle farm complex, barely getting by 12 years after the death of Einar's son and a year after Mitch survived a mauling that left him with a broken body, a deformed face and pain that requires Einar to provide daily backrubs and morphine injections.
That's the situation they're in when they receive the surprise — and, to Einar, unwelcome — visit of Jean (Jennifer Lopez), the daughter-in-law whom Einar blames for his son's death in an auto accident. Seems she had fallen asleep at the wheel.

Einar's bitterness toward her was so strong and so immediate that he not only drove her away from the ranch but caused her to keep secret from him the fact that she was pregnant at his son's ­funeral. She returns now, with her daughter Griff (newcomer Becca Gardner), only to get away from a boyfriend who has become murderously abusive.

The setup from Mark and Virginia Spragg's sentimental script is aimed in such obvious directions that you may lose interest before you get to them. But the performances of Redford, Freeman and Gardner give it genuine warmth and help us through some of the hoarier clichés.
Among those clichés is Jean's ill-tempered and wild-eyed boyfriend Gary (Damian Lewis), who follows her from Iowa to Einar's ranch, where he gets his face in the way of Einar's fists. This may be the most fierce beating administered by a codger to a young man in fit condition since Sean Connery eased into semi-retirement. The guy deserves his whuppin', but the ease with which it's done stretches credulity.

Speaking of credulity, there's the problem of Lopez. Though she's generally convincing in her role, she just doesn't have the talent or training to reach deep inside for the inevitable big scene, when the tension between Jean and Einar is released in an emotional blowout.
That leaves the best moments in the film for the playful banter between Einar and Mitch and the evolving relationship of ­Einar and Griff.

The reliably wise and mellow Freeman is pretty much on cruise control, and people won't be far wrong in comparing Mitch to Clint Eastwood's sidekick in "Million Dollar Baby." But you'd be hard-pressed to think of another actor who could bring as much to an otherwise thankless role.
"An Unfinished Life" is among several long-held Miramax films being released in a last-minute fire sale before the Weinstein brothers' official separation from Disney. It's no great thing, but in their heyday as Oscar campaigners, they could have made Redford a contender.