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Becca Gardner, from left, Jennifer Lopez and Robert Redford star in director Lasse Hallström's "An Unfinished Life."Review
Sentimental 'Unfinished Life' comes together in the end
Robert Redford's performance reminds us of his glory years, as his role fits him perfectly.
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At times too predictable, at times too stretched with imagination, "An Unfinished Life" nevertheless manages to be consistently entertaining and ultimately satisfying, offering Robert Redford his best role in a decade. Kids, this is why everybody used to love this guy.
Redford plays Einar Gilkyson, an aging, angry ranch owner who's caring for his longtime buddy, Mitch (Morgan Freeman), while barely keeping things together on the dilapidated ranch. Mitch was mauled by a bear a while back, and Einar cooks his food, massages his scarred flesh and gives him shots for pain.
Into Einar's life comes Jean (Jennifer Lopez), the wife of Einar's dead son. She's running from an abusive boyfriend (Damian Lewis), and she's got a surprise for her father-in-law: Her daughter, his granddaughter, Griff (Becca Gardner), a girl Einar never knew existed. Jean asks if they can stay on the ranch until she finds a job and can afford a place of their own. He grudgingly says yes.
What follows is what you'd expect. Jean gets a job at a local diner and builds a bond with both the owner (Camryn Manheim) and the local sheriff (Josh Lucas). Einar can't resist the charms of his pre-adolescent granddaughter and shows her the ways of the ranch, even though he resents Jean terribly. The hot-headed boyfriend somehow finds where Jean has gone. And Mitch, in the way of most Freeman characters, looks wisely over all that's going on.
Oh, and then there's the bear. The one that mauled Mitch. It wanders through the movie like some plot device left over from a John Irving novel. Director Lasse Hallström has a long history of connecting the magical with the pragmatic ("Chocolat," "The Cider House Rules," "What's Eating Gilbert Grape") but the bear is a bit much even for him. The creature doesn't tromp on the film, but he does crowd it.
Redford, on the other hand, seems right in place here, playing for the most part against type. Einar is a bitter man simply going through the motions, left ruined by the death of his son and resentful of other, better lives. Or at least that's what he thinks. In truth, he loves to banter with Mitch, and once he begins connecting with Griff, the façade he's built around himself begins to fall. Redford delightfully mumbles and grumbles his way through the part, but you know in the end he's still the Sundance Kid.
Lopez, on the other hand, never seems to completely inhabit Jean's skin, which is odd because, aside from her best film, "Out of Sight," she has a history of being good in not-so-good movies. Here she's not-so-good in a good movie. It's likely just a matter of poor casting.
Not that she -- or the bear, for that matter -- brings the enterprise down. Hallström knows how to do movies like this, and he finds all the emotional truth in the script by Mark Spragg and Virginia Korus Spragg, balancing heroism and hypocrisy, toning the obvious down and turning the subtle up. The result is a solid if slightly imperfect film.
"An Unfinished Life" has had a shaky life, being held on the shelf by Miramax only to see a near-anonymous release in early September. It deserves much better, and audiences that seek it out will likely find themselves glad they did. There is honest heart here of a sort too rarely seen.
You can reach Tom Long at tlong @detnews.com. And join him for Reel Talk, a movie preview and discussion, monthly at the Star Southfield Theatre. To register call (313) 222-1457, (313) 222-1458, or go online at www.detnews.com/entertainment.
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