You Can Count on Me (2000)
Directed by Kenneth Lonergan
A single mother's life is thrown into turmoil after her struggling, rarely-seen younger brother returns to town.
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What critics compared You Can Count on Me to
If anything, the recent film it most recalls is You Can Count on Me (2000), another small treasure about a fractured family that managed to be moving without troweling on the sap.
Ruffalo ( You Can Count on Me ), with horn-rimmed glasses and messed up hair, is the techno geek who dances around in his skivvies, while Dunst , as ditzy Mary, gets the chance to show some real comic flair for once ( Bring It On doesn't count).
Saulnier invests Blue Ruin with wonderful character moments, like a reunion between Dwight and his sister (Amy Hargreaves) that’s like You Can Count On Me in miniature: two long-separated siblings meeting again under a cloud of disappointment and duress.
(It’s You Can Count On Me for acid freaks.)
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(It followed Lonergan’s remarkable 2000 début, “ You Can Count on Me ,” a low-budget success that also garnered two Oscar nominations.)
Lonergan has made two other classics, " You Can Count on Me " and "Margaret"; the latter was released to theaters in a butchered though still compelling version, so if you haven't seen it yet, watch the expanded cut, which is available on DVD and online.
Lonergan is a wonderful writer and storyteller who co-wrote The Gangs of New York and the critically acclaimed but little seen You Can Count on Me.
Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan is years and years removed from his debut success and signature film, the equally brittle and heartbroken “You Can Count on Me.”
It’s only Lonergan’s third film after “You Can Count on Me” and “Margaret,” but it exhibits a level of artistry suggesting a master builder.
Ruffalo is the standout, with an open wound of a performance that recalls his breakthrough in You Can Count on Me , but equally kind things could be said of Liev Schreiber's reserve as the Globe's quietly persistent new editor-in-chief or Stanley Tucci as a lawyer for abuse victims whose amusing cantankerousness masks a well of compassion.