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Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) was once the nicest, sweetest person in the world. But then her husband disappears—without even saying good-bye—leaving Terry to take care of herself and their four daughters. At that moment, Terry stops being the nicest woman in the world. At that moment, Terry becomes angry.
Terry lets her anger take control of her life. At first, she spends her days holed up in her living room in her nightgown, watching TV and drinking, forcing her daughters to take care of themselves—and their mother. But then Denny Davies (Kevin Costner) shows up at her door. Denny was once a baseball star—but now he’s a washed-up drunk with his own radio show, on which he’ll talk about anything but baseball. At first, Denny is Terry’s drinking buddy. But it doesn’t take long for Denny to take a step out of his own loneliness and take an interest in Terry’s life and those of her girls. He starts inviting himself over for dinner. He helps her daughter find the job she’s been searching for. And he starts pulling the Wolfmeyer women back together, all the while helping Terry begin to move on.
If you missed this limited release in the theaters, be sure to check it out now that it’s out on DVD. It’s a powerful story about the things we miss when we get caught up in ourselves—told in an entirely real way. The characters are realistic—they’re imperfect, but you can relate. And the story doesn’t try to be anything that it’s not. It doesn’t try to be a comedy or a drama or a romance—though it is all of those. It just tries to be real—and in doing so, it makes viewers care about the characters, and about what happens to them. To add to that, Joan Allen gives a strong performance as Terry, though Kevin Costner (playing—surprise!—a baseball player) steals the show—in what I believe is one of his best performances.
One thing viewers will find with this movie is that it provides very little background information. We hear very little about Terry’s husband or their past together. We don’t know all that much about Denny—and the things we do know about Terry’s four daughters are sketchy at best. But the movie isn’t about them. It’s about Terry. It’s about what she’s going through—and about the anger that pulls her inside herself. We see very little of the girls because Terry doesn’t either. She’s too focused on herself—on her situation, on the here and now.
The plot is cleverly written, opening with a funeral scene that will keep viewers guessing until the end. There’s a somewhat unexpected twist in the end—one that will either pound the message home or mess everything up, depending on how you look at it. But, questionable ending aside, The Upside of Anger is well worth seeing.
