![]() He cautions his wife that life is just “a list of what we’ve lost,” but he’s still man enough not to let her hit the road alone. ![]() In a twist on the expected gender roles, George is the one who’s reticent about taking back something that doesn’t legally belong to them, and nervous about the consequences of trying. The day after their grim city hall nuptials, Donnie steals Lorna and Jimmy away to North Dakota with the intention of raising the child as a member of the Weboy’s mafia-like brood, and in doing so robs the grief-stricken Blackledges of the last direct connection they have to their late son.īoth grandparents are made from rough bark, but it’s Margaret who pockets her husband’s service pistol, bakes a nice lemon cake, and gins up some big John Wayne energy as she prepares to drive north in search of her “stolen” kin. Here is a tanned hide of a movie about the violence that results from conflicting ideas of what this country should be, and while the writer/director of “The Family Stone” lacks the chops to tell this story with the suspense it demands (or the hard-nosed focus required to mine something new from the myth it deconstructs), he fully understands the symbolic power of seeing these actors lose something they can never get back.Īlas, that same love sparks a gruesome cycle of retribution after Ryan dies in a freak horse-riding accident, and a desperate Lorna agrees to remarry a not-so-nice fella with family ties of his own a few years later (Will Brittain as the abusive Donnie Weboy). Adapted from the Larry Watson novel of the same name, this terse and simple Western thriller casts Costner and Lane as a retired couple in early ’60s Montana whose marriage is tested at a time when America’s aspirational self-image is about to be undone by the tribalism of its design. Thomas Bezucha’s “ Let Him Go” doesn’t have that problem. ![]() But while Snyder recognized that Costner and Lane spark an old-fashioned vision of American values more potent than even Superman could express alone, the franchise-oriented “Man of Steel” couldn’t afford to consider that such a vision can only exist in hindsight. ![]() Bright actors on their own, these two stars transform into some kind of denim supernova whenever they’re hired to share the same galaxy the patriotic energy of their combined screen presence is powerful enough to fuel a Ford commercial and make you want to call your parents “ma” and “pa” for a few weird days. If Zack Snyder’s superhero movies got one thing right - and that’s a big “if” - it’s that Kevin Costner and Diane Lane are the Platonic ideal of white, decent, midwestern parents. ![]()
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