Review: Everything Must Go

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Everything Must Go

When it comes to choice of roles, Will Ferrell and Tom Cruise share something in common. They regularly choose roles that are safe and play in a limited range. In a Tom/Will movie Tom is Tom and Will is Will. But every once in awhile they break from their self-created molds and pick roles that color outside of the lines. For  Cruise, the roles that color outside the lines include Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia and Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder. For Ferrell, the role of Nick Halsey in Everything Must Go is his departure from a typical Will Ferrell movie.

Nick Halsey is having a particularly bad day: Fired from his job, returns home to find all his worldly possessions strewn across the lawn ... and to add insult to injury, the locks to his house have been changed by his wife. But his misery doesn't stop there. I won't go into details. Let's just say that more bad stuff happens.

After these initial tragedies, Nick gets drunk on PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) Tall Boys and eventually crashes on the front lawn of his house in a recliner. Having nowhere else to go, he sets up shop on the front lawn. In a normal Will Ferrell movie this is the point where we get silly slapstick comedy laced with filler to take us to the next comedy skit. Not this time. Ferrell does a commendable job of showing the despair of a man that has just lost everything. He carries this emotional thread throughout the movie.

If there are any faults in Everything Must Go, it comes from the fact that the supporting cast members, while doing a commendable job, seem almost like filler characters to me. This story is all about Nick and his presence overshadows the rest of the cast.

The most prominent supporting character is Kenny Loftus, played by Christopher Jordan Wallace. Kenny is a neighborhood boy who befriends Nick. The other memorable character is a new addition to the neighborhood: Samantha, played by Rebecca Hall. It's through these two characters that Nick gains strength and realizes that he's not the only one with problems. To me it seems Nick helps both of these people more than they help him. I would like to have seen these characters be a little bit stronger in their roles.

Would I recommend seeing this movie? Yes I would. I like seeing directors take actors into new directions and the director of Everything Must Go, Dan Rush, pulls this off.