All Good Things (**½)

Directed by: Andrew Jarecki

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst, Frank Langella, Michael Esper, Kristen Wiig, Philip Baker Hall, Lily Rabe, Nick Offerman

Seen: June 28^th 2010

**½ Out of ****

All Good Things is advertised as a romantic mystery, and while technically true, I’d rather put it up as a dramatic thriller, heavy on slow moving drama and light on thriller elements. The movie starts as a sweet looking romance focusing on a couple starting out their lives together despite the meddling of opposing forces, but soon enough an uneasy and quietly violent undertone seeps in around the edges, robbing the movie of this innocent and romantic feeling, and it goes into disposition so, well… bizarre and counterintuitive, that there are odd moments at which only the fact that it’s based on true events keep you as viewer anchored to this unbelievable story. I use the word unbelievable liberally, this isn’t not good unbelievable, it’s an indifferent sort of unbelievable, losing the viewer in muddled details en route to the conclusion of this sordid and speculative story.

David Marks (Gosling), real estate tycoon Sanford Marks’ (Langella) oldest son, is seen as wasting his life. His father calls him weak and publicly criticises his decisions, not bothering to veil his attempts at manipulating him into the family business. David fights this fitfully, bringing a girl he just met, Katie McCarthy (Dunst), to a high profile dinner where even the district attorney attends. This dinner, with David as outsider brother, is put in stark contrast to David joining Katie for a family dinner, where the McCarthy family contemplate David’s origins during a healthy family gathering.

David and Katie get married, but immediately the viewer is shown that this marriage is one with no guests, only Katie’s mother and David’s father at the ceremony, and Sanford even splits the bill with Katie’s mother as they finish up – clearly communicating his disapproval. David and Katie open All Good Things, a health food store, yet Sanford keeps pressuring David into the seemingly seedy family business. As the relationship between David and Katie progresses, it seems at first that they’ll overcome the odds, but soon enough the viewer realises that David is deeply unstable (David witnessed his mother’s gruesome death at age 7, and his father’s cold-hearted opinion on it is also introduced). Katie sinks deeper into a Stockholm Syndrome love of David, her choices regarding him becoming more irrational as he is shown to be more of a mystery than suspected at first.

As David is pulled back into the business (it’s unclear whether this is willingly or not), he is also relegated to a low-level position, his brother Daniel (Esper) is groomed as successor and acts as David’s watcher/babysitter. More characters are added in David’s long time friend Deborah Lehrman (Rabe) and David’s new neighbour Malvern Bump (Hall), and as the characters clash/act upon own interpretations, violence and murder and conniving ensues, leaving the viewer incredulous.

Ryan Gosling is his usual brilliant self, but I’m looking forward to seeing him as a regular character again as opposed to his creepy and unsavoury characters in both this movie and Blue Valentine earlier this year. Kirsten Dunst has received critical acclaim for her role here, but I believe her costumes and make-up play a bigger role in her performance, as she delivers some odd moments of acting. The supporting cast are believable and credibly support the story, with Frank Langella yet again proving his worth, this time as a controlling and manipulating patriarch.

All Good Things is frustratingly ambiguous, as if fearing retribution from Robert Durst, the real life David Marks (who apparently hung around during filming and eventually liked the movie). Very little is clear and claims in advertising that “the truth is eventually revealed” (IMDb) and “Until it became the perfect crime” (poster) are misleading. As a result I’m indifferent towards this movie as reviewer too.