In preparation for Thursday's Smackdown Team Experience is traveling back to 2000.
Mainstream cinema, such as it is, has an understandable fondness for the portrayal of interpersonal relationships. That's what happens when narrative cinema dominates and character-based drama is the rule. Nevertheless, it's interesting to note how some bonds are more privileged than others in storytelling. Romantic love is common. Friendship has its own subgenres. Parents and children are at the center of many tales. Enemies, rivals, hateful adversaries have their place too. But sibling relationships, though very common in life, are very rarely at the forefront of any given motion picture. Consequentially, when such a film appears, there's an added value to its existence. At least, that's how I feel.
Kenneth Lonergan's debut feature, You Can Count On Me, is probably one of the best examples of this rare fraternal cinema…
As someone with three sisters, two older and one younger, it's fair to say that sibling dynamics are a big part of my life and upbringing. Perhaps because of this, I pay close attention to the authenticity, or lack thereof, in the way brothers and sisters are portrayed on-screen. So often, it seems that writers fall into generalizations that lack nuance or perceptive observation. They're rich in superficial appeal but deficient in accurate representation. Furthermore, they're rarely at the forefront of a store and more a sideline quirk. When the people in question are adults rather than children, these problems become especially noticeable.
Enough negativity, I'm here to celebrate and express my love for film. Namely, the aforementioned You Can Count On Me, a miracle of a family drama presented with little fanfare but much precision. As a director, Kenneth Lonergan isn't one to show off his formal ingenuity. As a writer, he prefers lived-in conflict, unsaid hurts, and invisible bonds to pyrotechnical emotion. Any obvious demonstrativeness is left off-screen apart from some carefully chosen moments, often prompted by the structural integrity of the story or a character's organic development. This means his actors are handed meaty tridimensional parts to sink their teeth in, but prevented from indulging in voracious scene-chewing at every step.
While I love some Lonergan projects more than his first feature film as a director, You Can Count On Me has a special place in my heart. As the years go by, I become fonder of the flick, realizing how unsparingly honest its depiction of a brother-sister bond truly is. Thankfully, I didn't grow up in the same orphaned state as Sammy and Terry Prescott, the picture's complicated protagonists. Nonetheless, witnessing their first face-to-face on-screen interaction, as played by Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo, is nothing short of eerie. So many aspects of how my sisters and I behave around each other shine through the frame, be it minor loving considerations or more overt vexations.
When we find this pair, they've been living apart for a long time. Sammy's a single mother still living in her hometown while her brother is mostly absent from her life. His call to set up a meeting came like a gift from the heavens, but the conversation the two have at a lunch table quickly reveals the paradoxical fragilities and sturdiness of their bond. Linney can utter the word "fine" in an infinite amount of variations, as this scene quickly proves, weaponizing the non-committal language to showcase the distance that has grown between the two. It's obvious they care about each other, though that doesn't mean they're instantaneously happy-go-lucky when together.
In fact, it's not a show of affection that makes the walls of politeness come down and allows vulnerability to blossom. It's irritation that does the trick. Once the sister realizes her brother is only visiting because he needs cash, the scene shifts tones, the editing revealing the hurt and need each sibling feels for the other. In the exact same second, wildly different emotional tones may command the screen, be it an ersatz melancholy or the pithy pettiness of a good playground quarrel. Lonergan's direction, writing, keeps the scene from flattening into just one dimension, while Anne McCabe's editing performs a precipitous dance. Subtly and without calling attention to itself, the cutting demands we empathize with both characters, even as their interests are in direct conflict.
Most of all, the entire film belongs to Linney and Ruffalo, two genius performers delivering the best work of their illustrious careers. They suggest a shared life that extends beyond the story's limits through nuanced expression and astute line readings. We believe in their bond. It's all in the morsels of intimacy, the amusement that colors frustration, how one might smile but still radiate judgment. Moreover, they comprehend an intrinsic thing about siblings. In my experience, brothers and sisters can comfort each other like few others, their union laced with a camaraderie forged in the battleground of growing up.
However, they can also hurt, debilitate, destroy with terrifying ease. Sometimes, it's not even a direct attack that devastates our sibling. Sometimes, it's the act of cajoling, the innocent deflection, the harmless disinterest that causes most pain. Sometimes, it's familial love, for no other emotion can produce as much suffering and elation, often at the same time. You Can Count On Me encapsulates all these antithetical realities, showcasing them with warmth and humor, delicate softness, and scalpel-like sharpness. As the film shifts from tonal register to tonal register, it reflects the inner truth and turmoil of its characters and their relationship. Be it in awkward silences or the gentility of a shared smile, this film is a sweet miracle that consistently delights and wrecks me.
By the story's end, it always makes me want to hug my sisters and tell them how important they are to me. Tell them they can always count on me.
What are some of your favorite cinematic portrayals of bonds between siblings?
Recently on 2000...
• Erin Brockovich's best lines - Christopher
• The Contender and the Oscar journeys of its stars - Ben
• Jamie Bell in Billy Elliot - Cláudio
• Gay Best Friend: on Michael in Billy Elliot - Christopher
• A semi-defense of Chocolat - Ben
• Joaquin Phoenix's Ascension - Cláudio
• Eartha Kitt in The Emperor's New Groove - Nick
• A love letter to Almost Famous - Christopher
• Björk in Dancer in the Dark - Cláudio
• Crouching Tiger and the foreign Oscar race - Juan Carlos
older pieces
• Horror Actressing the women of American Psycho - Jason
• Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Crouching Tiger - Nathaniel
• Interview: Mary Harron on American Psycho - special guest Cara Seymour
• Great Moments in Gay: Bring It On - Kieran