Countless movies have been made about war, whether it’s about soldiers (e.g. Green Zone or The Hurt Locker), war photographers (The Hunting Party or Triage) or informing loved ones about the loss of a family member (The Messenger), they are usually movies that have a lot of impact on the viewer.
Grace is Gone tells the story of Stanley Philips (John Cusack) and his two daughters. When a “messenger” appears on Stanley’s doorstep to inform him about the loss of his wife he really doesn’t know how to handle this information.
He sits down his daughters to tell them, but instead of doing so asks them where they want to go if they could go anywhere. They tell about this fun park at the other side of the country and they go on a long roadtrip. This trips shows how the family learns a lot about each other and become closer. With the knowledge that his wife has passed away the voyage has a surrealistic feeling with him even talking to the answering machine as if that’s his wife.
Because of the subject matter, the importance of relationships and the impact of losing someone, this feels like a very personal movie. It’s the kind of movie I like seeing John Cusack doing. After seeing Hot Tub Time Machine (in which he really didn’t belong) this movie shows what a great actor he is. I hardly recognised him in the first scene, he walks differently and it looks like he gained some weight for this role as well. The two kids who play his daughters are excellent as well, with one really being oblivious to what is really going on and the other one, a teenager, slowly realising something is wrong with her father. Grace is Gone is a good movie that manages to show another side of war in an interesting way.
Score: 7
Never saw this one. Probably, worth watching.
Off-topic: woohoo, I’m excited about the two upcoming reviews!
Yeah, it’s an interesting movie. As for the upcoming reviews, I’ll try to write them soon as I can. Just don’t manage to write as much as I want lately.