Everything Must Go

I have watched quite a few movies lately as I have been consistently under the weather and have not reviewed any of them. We will attempt to begin the process of correcting that with a review of the under appreciated Will Ferrell movie from 2011 Everything Must Go.

Based on a Raymond Carver short story Why Don't You Dance. When one says based on, in this case they mean that there is an ever so slight similarity, mainly that both lead characters have a yard sale of their belongings. The story which I had recently read is much shallower in depth and understanding than the movie.

Will Ferrell plays Nick Halsey a salesman who is also an alcoholic. As the movie begins we see Nick being fired from his job for an incident that occurred on a business trip in Denver. After vandalizing his Supervisor's car on the way out of the parking lot and then stopping to buy beer on the way home Nick arrives home to find out that the locks have been changed and his belongings are all over the yard.

Nick settles in to his easy chair in the yard. The next morning when he goes to get more beer he returns to find his company car being repossessed. Life is getting worse. Soon the police show up and Nick when confronted with trouble has them call his sponsor in AA, a Frank Garcia, who is a detective. The detective comes by and gets Nick a three day ticket for a yard sale which will buy him sometime to figure things out.

Over the course of the next few days Nick develops a relationship with a young boy in the neighborhood who is apparently unsupervised for much of the day and a new neighbor across the street who has just moved in and is waiting for her husband to arrive. Along the way we learn more about Nick's relationship with his wife and his sponsor and how even that is not as simple as he might like it to be.

The movie did not do well, being a change of pace for Ferrell perhaps people did not get what they expected. That said Ferrell was cast perfectly in the role. Exceptionally believable as the typical frat boy turned professional but still drinking his life away, this man suddenly hit in the face with reality and the world of grown ups and not knowing how to handle it except to do what he has already done, crawl deeper into his immature ways and drink it away. Ferrell provides depth here one does not expect. One wonders if he ever will get a chance for a serious role or if he is so typecast that can never happen for him. If so it is a loss for as funny as he can be one gets the sense that there is much more talent in Ferrell than we expect in our physical comedians.

This is an interesting, sweet in its own way, dark in another way movie. It is not in anyway like any of the broad comedy one expects from Ferrell. Be warned and enjoy it for what it is.