Institute History
Description
"Classic melodrama" was the old-fashioned term used to characterize family dramas where women struggled with their situation or gave voice to once-repressed desires. More often than not, these films focused on the bourgeoisie, where stifling urges and desires for fulfillment is endemic. Galvanized by a great and witty script, and powered by truly remarkable performances by Joan Allen and Kevin Costner, The Upside of Anger is a welcome and inspired revision of the classic genre. Writer/director Mike Binder deserves all the kudos he will likely receive for this superbly rendered comedic drama, which is at once traditional and iconoclastic and as absorbing and entertaining as it is appealingly human.
The story is set in motion when the alcoholic matriarch of the well-to-do midwestern Wolfmeyer family discovers her husband has disappeared and left her to raise four headstrong daughters (all in various stages of young adulthood) on her own, without any clear means of support. Her drunken rants fuel her already combative parenting style, and the situation really erupts when a middle-aged neighbor makes a play for her attention. The stellar cast, including Erika Christensen, Evan Rachel Wood, Keri Russell, and Alicia Witt, makes this portrayal of a family's emotional transformation one of the most pleasurable and surprisingly unpredictable romantic dramas you'll see this year.