The Upside of Anger is a 2005 romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Binder and set in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. It stars Joan Allen, Kevin Costner and Evan Rachel Wood, and received a 74% rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Plot
The movie begins at a funeral which Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) attends with Denny (Kevin Costner), her new boyfriend.
The movie flashes back to three years earlier when Terry tells her daughters, Popeye (Evan Rachel Wood), Emily (Keri Russell), Hadley (Alicia Witt) and Andy (Erika Christensen) that their father has left them. He has been gone a couple of days and Terry suspects that he left to be with his former secretary in Sweden.
Terry's neighbor, Denny, a retired baseball player turned radio talk show host, knocks on the door wanting to discuss a real estate deal. Terry tells him the news and Denny is shocked. Denny and Terry, both alcoholics, begin spending a lot of time together drinking. Denny eventually becomes very close to the family, enjoying the excitement that the girls bring to his life. After much debate, Terry and Denny eventually sleep together.
Denny helps Andy get a job as a production assistant at the radio station as she does not want to go back to college. She almost immediately begins an affair with Shep, Denny's producer,a lecherous forty-something man who will not date women his own age.
Popeye is attending a private high school. She is attracted to a classmate and her sister advises her to tell him that she's from a broken home because she feels that boys like that. Popeye follows this advice but gets no response. Popeye eventually makes a pass at him; the classmate rejects her claiming to be gay. Popeye is skeptical but she remains close to him.
Evan Rachel Wood as Popeye Lavender
Emily wants to go to a performing arts school to study dancing, which her mother thinks is ridiculous. She vetoes Emily's plans and Emily, although angry, accedes to her mother's wishes, attending University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Hadley, at her college graduation, reveals to her mother and sisters that she is engaged to her boyfriend of three years and pregnant. Meeting the boyfriend's parents for first time at the graduation lunch, Terry makes a drunken fool of herself.
One day after an outing, Popeye asks Denny if he'll marry her mom. That night Denny tells Terry what Popeye asked and Terry is furious. She screams at Denny that he’s trying to use her daughter to get to her. She locks herself in the bathroom. Denny kicks down the bathroom door and states that he has tolerated Terry's moodiness and rages because he knows she’s in pain but he is no longer willing to put up with it. He leaves and goes back to his own house.
The two later reconcile and the real estate deal mentioned earlier in the film goes through. Construction of new houses begins. One of the workers is working through some brush and steps on an old well cover and almost falls in. Horrified by what he sees inside, the worker summons Denny, who looks into the well and is shocked by what he sees. Examining a wallet that was also found in the well, Denny discovers that it belongs to Terry’s husband. Terry, who has come out to investigate, insists on looking into the well and sees her husband's body. It is at that moment that Terry realizes that her husband never left her. Apparently, he had fallen in the well while walking the property and drowned.
The movie ends where it began, with the women leaving Mr. Wolfmeyer's funeral. Terry, although sad over the loss of her husband, begins to feel peaceful and looks at her four daughters with pride.
Trivia
Much of the movie was actually filmed at Ealing Studios, London, according to the closing credits and the special features section of the DVD. Part was filmed in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a wealthy suburb of Detroit.
- At the wedding scene, the band plays "Try a Little Tenderness" and after singing the first couple of lines, the singer hums, as if he forgot the lyrics. This is a cross-movie joke as this was the same song featured in Bull Durham, where Kevin Costner's character gets upset with another player for not knowing the words to "Try a Little Tenderness"
- Another cross-movie reference... When Terry goes to Denny's house to clean, she holds up a poster of Denny in a Detroit Tigers uniform. This is most likely a reference to Detroit Tiger alumnus and frequent radio show host Denny McLain, considering that the character is named "Denny" and of whom a great many baseball posters depicting McClain were made due to his popularity after becoming the last pitcher, to date, to win 30 games in a single season. Costner played a Detroit Tiger in the movie "For Love of the Game".
Cast
Awards and nominations
Awards won
Nominations
References
External links
