Moving Greatest a Heartfelt Drama
After their eldest son Bennett (Aaron Johnson) dies in a shocking car accident the chances Allen (Pierce Brosnan) and Grace Brewer’s (Susan Sarandon) already disintegrating marriage can ever be salvaged seem to be disappearing by the second. But when 18-year-old Rose (Carey Mulligan) appears on their doorstep claiming to be pregnant with their departed child’s baby, everything slowly starts to change, her presence having an effect on the entire family, even troubled youngest son Ryan (Johnny Simmons), that might just put them all back on the road to recovery.
Aaron Johnson and Carey Mulligan in Paladin's The Greatest
At its heart, writer/director Shana Feste’s debut motion picture The Greatest is about the myriad ties that bind a family together, how they stretch, how they break and how, through love, caring and hardship, they can be re-sown to become stronger than they ever were before. It is a potentially treacle-filled and melodramatic waste of time that thankfully is anything but, the film instead an emotionally charming winner that moved me to honestly earned tears I was beyond happy to be having the pleasure of shedding.
What’s most shocking here is how funny and endearing much of the movie is. Feste puts her characters in the worst situation imaginable; parents dealing with the loss of a child, a young woman mourning the death of her unborn child’s father, a younger brother coping with never telling his older sibling just how much he loved him; but somehow remembers that light can touch even the darkest corner. People deal with tragedy in different ways and all of the people here exemplify that, the multifaceted relationships that develop tinged with a poignant believability most melodramas of this sort sadly lack.
There are some missteps. Allen’s adulterous past is lingered upon a bit more heavily than necessary, while a twist regarding Ryan and his potential friendship with a fellow survivor of sibling loss Ashley (Zoë Kravitz) is more than a bit silly. There’s also a forest confrontation between the Brewer’s and Rose that feels oddly forced and unnatural compared to everything else in the movie, this one moment ringing with a falseness not found anywhere else in the movie.
But as far as I’m concerned that’s really about it. The level of honesty here passing between all the characters is quite stirring, and I loved the way things between the Brewers and Rose move so eloquently from acceptance, to understanding, friendship, to ultimately love. I bought it all, and by the time things come to their relatively forgone conclusion I was so swept inside this family’s melodramas I almost didn’t want to see them come to an end.
Brosnan, who also executive produces, is having a wonderful year from an acting standpoint. While I didn’t like Remember Me all that much he was still excellent in it, while his supporting turns in Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and especially Roman Polanski’s outstanding The Ghost Writer were both aces. This just might be his best performance of the bunch, however, and I loved the way he is able to internalize so much of what Allen is going through yet still reveal bits and pieces of a pain he’s been unable to bring himself to deal with.
As for Sarandon, she’s just fine, but we’ve seen her play similar characters in films like Moonlight Mile so to say she does anything extraordinary would be kind of a misnomer. That said, the actress shares a single scene with Michael Shannon (who is quickly becoming the king of one scene knockout performances) that is beyond stunning, the two of them playing off one another in ways that completely amaze. The places they go are both honest and surprising, and almost without realizing it I found myself sitting through their moment together holding my breath in quiet awe.
Then there is Mulligan. I still hold that she should have won the Oscar for her mesmerizing turn in An Education, and while I’m a tiny bit sad she didn’t the fact she’s still been able to follow it up with such a deliriously multifaceted turn as this one can’t help but make me smile. Her work as Rose is sublime, and while I’m not ready to give her a second Academy Award nomination for what she does here the actress certainly proves that first one was hardly a fluke.
The last scene of The Greatest has stuck with me for a few days now. There is something about the way it finds hope in loss, happiness in grief, a new beginning in a tragic end that moved me in ways I can hardly describe. By and large Feste’s debut effort is worthy of celebration, and while audiences are probably going to have a tough time finding this independent effort those that put forth the effort to do so are going to be incredibly happy they did.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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