Erika Christensen: The Upside of Anger

IF you've seen the movie "The Upside of Anger" you can sympathize with Joan Allen, who plays the single mother with several "problem" daughters.

One of the daughters, an attractive teenager played by Erika Christensen, falls for an older man. Erika says that, while she can understand someone her age being involved with an older man, it no longer reflects her own feelings:

"I completly see the attraction of older men, but I've only recently realized that I want someone my own age -- just because I think that our lives will be on track together. But that's just me."

So who is Erika looking for?

"Someone who has some kind of artistic urge would be ideal for me. I think we'd understand each other. Maybe even someone in the business."

Joan Allen is the mother in "The Upside of Anger," Kevin Costner the radio talk show host chasing her.

Four stars. If hell truly hath no fury like a woman scorned, then Hades' realm must be breathtakingly unpleasant, because it's difficult to imagine simmering rage any more intense than that displayed by Joan Allen's Terry Wolfmeyer.

Writer/director Mike Binder's "The Upside of Anger" would be compelling and entertaining under any circumstances; the script is witty and sharply observed, the characters just edgy and unexpected enough to keep us guessing. Each member of the strong ensemble cast has ample opportunity to shine, and the film is crafted, photographed and edited with impressive polish.

But Allen transforms the very good into the truly impressive, her fiery, all-stops-out performance captivating in a way that could have overwhelmed a lesser project. Even her minor scenes are compelling; I've often joked, when expressing admiration for a particular actor, that s/he could make grocery shopping fascinating ... and, bless my soul, Allen proves that. And then some.

I'd love to have been a bug on the wall as this film was made, because it would have been fascinating to watch the process Allen used to ramp herself up each day. (I hope she was able to turn it off between takes, else she surely would have terrorized the rest of the cast.) With her compressed lips, steely gaze and ubiquitous white spots on her cheeks, Terry is a study of cold wrathfulness: a woman truly consumed by a desire to live best by living angry.

And yet two things are apparent immediately, starting with the subtleties of Allen's performance, because - volcanic rage notwithstanding - it's almost played for laughs. Despite this film's frequent state of high emotion, "The Upside of Anger" is by no means a spite-fest in the manner of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" or "Closer"; indeed, Binder's film has the warmth and familiar humanity that was noticeably absent in the latter, which existed solely for its sharp-edged speeches and caustic one-liners.

Granted, the characters in "The Upside of Anger" get off plenty of cheap shots, but they don't exist in a vacuum; we keep watching because these folks deserve better - deserve a resolution - as opposed to the ambulatory caricatures in "Closer," who deserved nothing ... except, perhaps, each other.

Second - and this is the point of Binder's script - Terry isn't living well at all; she has plunged herself into a purgatory of self-indulgent vindictiveness, her wounded pride and bitter sense of betrayal disallowing any other reaction.

Terry's comfortably wealthy New England lifestyle is thrown into chaos when her husband (whom we never meet) fails to return home one day, having decamped with a hotsy-totsy young assistant who'd be burned to a crisp were Terry's gaze to lock on her. Her hopes of a temporary fling dwindling with every passing day, Terry finally blurts the truth out loud to her four daughters: Their father has abandoned his family.

The girls - Hadley (Alicia Witt), Andy (Erika Christensen), Emily (Keri Russell) and Lavender, who goes by "Popeye" (Evan Rachel Wood) - take the news relatively well, all things considered. We sense that their father long ago stopped being a significant part of their lives, leaving them more able to absorb this information somewhat clinically, their personal reaction muted by the more pressing concern of getting their mother through the next few days ... weeks ... months.

But that's an oversimplification; the two youngest, Emily and Popeye, actually are affected quite deeply. Emily agonizes over the letter she wants to write to her father, expressing her disappointment without blunting her love; Terry encourages this process to the best of her ability, insisting that she won't trash-talk her husband ... while doing just that. Popeye retreats into an oddly hopeless relationship with a shy classmate (Dane Christensen), skittering around drug experimentation while slowly assembling a video thesis on humanity's sad history of allowing violence and rage to overcome gentleness and love.

Oddly, these five women almost immediately allow a surrogate father/husband into their lives, in the form of neighbor Denny Davies (Kevin Costner), a former baseball player who has let his own life slide while franchising himself as a radio DJ on a sports talk show ... where he'll discuss anything except baseball. We deduce that he and Terry's husband were good pals; now, without skipping a beat, Denny transforms himself into Terry's new drinking buddy.

Costner is a masterpiece of sloppy insouciance; it's a deliciously, unapologetically slovenly, warts-and-all performance along the lines of what we saw from Jack Nicholson in "Terms of Endearment," or John Travolta in "Michael." As a result, Costner's both a breath of fresh air and a revelation to those who'd begun to wonder if his career was circling the drain.

I've decided Costner is best as a team player: a strong supporting character who flavors a bubbling ensemble. He simply can't carry his vanity productions, whether self-directed ("The Postman") or as a hired gun ("Dragonfly").

Denny and Terry make quite a pair, but they're not exactly bad for each other, nor are they (quite) mutual enablers. Rather, Denny remains on hand in anticipation of further developments, displaying sensitivity and patience that'd probably surprise him, were somebody to call him on it. But his motives aren't entirely altruistic; as he explains, during an impassioned confession to Terry, he enjoys hanging around with her and "the girls" even when they're all mad at each other, because their home exudes a vitality he can't find inside his own equally lavish but emotionally barren house.

As Costner speeches go, it's not quite on par with Crash Davis' checklist of beliefs in "Bull Durham" ... but it's right up there.

The final key character in this emotional roundelay is Shep Goodman, Denny's radio producer and pimp by default, who snares his client not women, but supermarket openings that'll pay five-figure salaries for half an hour's half-hearted effort. Shep would like to be Denny's friend, but theirs is not quite a relationship of equals. There's something not entirely wholesome about Shep, whose mildly unkempt appearance isn't at all endearing in the manner of Denny's messy charm.

He's therefore absolutely the last person that Terry can imagine shacking up with Daughter No. 2, particularly since Andy's token job as a "production assistant" at the radio station forestalls the college plans she doesn't really have anyway ... much to Terry's chagrin.

And that's Terry all over: Rather than truly put her foot down, she'd rather allow her daughters to continue "disappointing" her - Andy not going to college, Emily with her "pointless" desire to dance professionally - since it stokes the turmoil in her gut.

(Happily, and delightfully, Andy can take care of herself quite well, thank you.)

Because Shep is played by Binder, we can be sure this guy will get at least one great speech himself, and indeed he does, during a particularly telling confrontation with a white-hot Terry.

All their alternately raw and amusing scenes notwithstanding, Costner, Erika Christensen, Binder, Russell and Wood are side dishes alongside Allen's combustible main course. She's simply amazing, her performance shaded on so many levels that you'll need multiple viewings to appreciate all the subtleties. Were this film to have debuted later this year, in autumn, she'd walk away with the next Best Actress Academy Award. Sadly, I'm not convinced her work here will be remembered that long. But it surely deserves to be.●