Product Description

A good-hearted drama about a small-town business woman whose irresponsible brother drifts back into her life causing complications for her and her eight-year-old son. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 05/23/2006 Starring: Laura Linney Rory Culkin Run time: 110 minutes Rating: R Director: Kenneth Lonergan

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13987 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Released on: 2001-06-26
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 111 minutes

Amazon.com
You Can Count On Me starts with a terrible car crash that instantly orphans a little boy and his older sister. At film's end, that boy, now a grown-up nomad and ne'er-do-well, takes off by Greyhound after a brief reunion with his sister, who lives at permanent anchor in their unspoiled hometown. The sibling saga that unreels between wrenching collision and bittersweet separation celebrates the idiosyncratic ways wounded folk like Terry (Mark Ruffalo) and Sammy (Laura Linney) put one foot in front of the other, both energized and hamstrung by the knowledge that nothing is ever certain in the road-movie of life. During his visit, Terry roils Sammy's becalmed existence, mostly by "fathering"--for good and ill--her overprotected 8-year-old (Rory Culkin), sneaking him out to play empowering bar pool, later introducing him to the weaselly dad he's fantasized into a superhero. Sammy starts a torrid affair with her married boss at the bank (Matthew Broderick gives delicious bureaucratic smarm), and considers marrying her sometime suitor (Jon Tenney), sweetly dull yet dependable. The narrative peaks here are human-sized, elevated by gentle humor and clear-eyed faith in the existential importance of these intersecting small-town lives. Linney is simply superb as Sammy, wild girl gone good, involuntarily "mothering" every man in her life. An authentic original, newcomer Ruffalo gives his modern-day Huck Finn a drawling, James Dean delivery tuned somewhere between a screwup's whine and the twang of pothead wisdom. (Hard to think of another recent film that so deftly nails down the rich dynamics of everyday conversation--the starts and stops, circumlocutions, clichés, sudden veers into revelation and eloquence.) This is that rarity, an action movie of the heart: no explosions or epiphanies, yet everything evolves through the catalysts of character and experience. --Kathleen Murphy

From The New Yorker
The first-rate actress Laura Linney-bland on the surface but with angry impulses churning underneath-gives a detailed and involving performance as a single working mother in a small and somewhat boring upstate New York town. When her screwup of a kid brother (Mark Ruffalo) returns from Alaska, she's torn between tossing him out and letting him stay on and become a companion to her fatherless son (Rory Culkin). The movie was written and directed by the playwright and screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan, who pays close attention to the way so many of us are divided between good and bad impulses-including bad impulses we desperately need to act on if we're not going to feel half-dead. Lonergan's work is quiet but intense, and Ruffalo-dark and sensual and agonizingly confused-gives a heartbreaking performance. With Matthew Broderick and Jon Tenney as Linney's suitors. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

A moving family story
I am glad that "You Can Count on Me," the wonderful film written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, was given a higher profile in the wake of its Academy Award nominations. This is a classic "small" film: it takes place entirely in or around a small town, and focuses on a small group of ordinary people. But the emotions of this film are powerful, the story is relevant, and Lonergan gets outstanding performances from a wonderful cast.

Laura Linney plays Sammy, a single mother and bank employee. When her troubled brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo) returns to town, Sammy's life and relationship with her young son (Rory Culkin) become complicated by Terry's influence. Sammy has to juggle this domestic situation with controversy at work, where her anal-retentive boss (Matthew Broderick) is making lives miserable.

The story sounds simple, but Lonergan's intelligent script really brings us into the lives of these characters. And the performances truly make this film worth seeing. Linney carries the lead role with passionate grace, and has great chemistry with her screen brother Ruffalo. Broderick delivers a wonderfully multilayered performance as a character who is at times pathetic, at times sympathetic, and at times downright infuriating. And Culkin is a revelation as the young son; this is one of the best performances by a child actor that I have ever seen.

"You Can Count on Me" deals insightfully with a number of relationships: mother/son, brother/sister, boss/employee, pastor/churchgoer, and more. Lonergan deftly blends moments of both heartbreak and hilarity into a richly satisfying whole. If you want to see a serious adult drama with some sparkling comic moments, check out this film--it's one of the year's best.

BEST FAMILY DRAMA IN 20 YEARS
Here are the most compelling reasons to buy this film, especially on DVD:

Words such as "masterpiece" and "genius" are incredibly overused these days, but I'm prepared to make the following statement: The screenplay is a masterpiece and Mark Ruffalo is a genius. (And Laura Linney, bless your soul, you are a damn fine actress.) Let me take a quick crack at supporting this statement, so that you can get on with the business of watching this movie instead of reading my review.

1. THE EDITING: Lonnergan's orginal screenplay chalked up 125 pages, which translates into roughly 125 minutes screen time. AFTER the final edit, Lonnergan RETYPED the screenplay (only a devoted writer and parent would do such a thing) and it yielded 95 pages. Now anyone who has written anything at all can tell you THIS IS SOME MAJOR CUTTING. And for the viewer it means a TIGHT, DIRECT, and WONDERFULLY VISUAL movie. To see what the hell I'm talking about, just check out the crash scene at the beginning of the film and specifically the moment when the policeman struggles to get a word out on the front porch. CUT!! You don't need to see anymore. Lonnergan trusts the audience to put the pieces together and the film moves on. It was at this very early point in the film when I saw it at the theater that I sensed the brilliance to come. And was not let down. You can probably find 20 moments where the scene ends EXACTLY WHERE IT NEEDS TO. (A comparable film in this respect is "Days of Heaven.")

2. BELIEVABLE CHARACTERS. That means complex characters. Characters who are not ALL GOOD or ALL BAD. Characters who behave in predictable and sometimes highly unpredictable ways, much like you and me.

3. SUPERB ACTING. You just don't see such nuanced performances like this every day. Watch Ruffalo carefully. Watch everything he does, even the way he listens to other characters. It's electrifying. His body language is a revelation and his delivery is perfect. I could watch him all day. The first three times I saw the film I was so enthralled by him I almost missed Laura Linney's performance. It is the equal of Ruffalo's.

4. THE SCREENPLAY. Everyone raves about the screenplay, so I've put this section near the end so you won't miss the other great qualities of this film. Lonnergan, I understand, wrote every single itty bitty word in the movie, including all the um and ahs. His appreciation for character is so deep, he KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT THESE CHARACTERS WOULD SAY, AND HOW THEY WOULD SAY IT.

5. THE DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY. The beauty, the absolute beauty of DVDs, is that from time to time you get the director's commentary on the audio track. In this incredibly generous and down-to-earth commentary, Lonnergan drops gem after gem, telling us all manner of large and small things, from insights into the characters, the movie-making process, and the incredibly sappy and small-minded film industry itself, to pointing out which character is his real-life wife (!) and which scenes he had Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo direct!

Final analysis: A must-own DVD. Especially for budding actors, editors, and screenwriters.

This is the real thing
This is the hardest review I'll ever write.

My mother recently committed suicide. My father died seven years ago of cancer. I'm 34 years old, and I am seen by my two sisters as the f-up brother. I can honestly say that I can totally relate to this film.

Laura Linney is dead-on as a sister who is trying to live a "normal" life; work at the bank, pick up the son in her SUV, and believe in God, about 15 years after the sudden tragic death of her parents. Her brother is immature, unreliable, can't hold a job, and smokes an awful lot of pot. She is the "caretaker" in the sibling relationship. But, as the film unveils, she certainly can't take care of herself. And the f-up brother isn't as worthless and stupid and selfish as he is supposed to be.

This is a real film about real people dealing with the extrodinarily frustrating and painful task of carrying on after a tragic family loss. And they go on. They continue, the best they can.

There is dysfunction and then there is dysfunction. Some of us know what a real dysfunctional family is. And we're not whiners. We're heroes. And this film is for us.