FemaleFirst.co.uk: DVD: You Can Count On Me [DVD] [2001]

You Can Count On Me [DVD] [2001]
enlarge	Director: Kenneth Lonergan Actors: Laura Linney, Matthew Broderick, Mark Ruffalo, Rory Culkin, Jon Tenney Studio: Momentum Pictures Category: DVD List Price: ~~£19.99~~ Buy New: £3.35 as of 25/11/2009 03:43 GMT details You Save: £16.64 (83%) New (19) Used (5) from £1.75 Seller: disks4u Rating: 10 reviews Sales Rank: 10780 Format: PAL, Widescreen Languages: English (Subtitled), English (Original Language) Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over Region: 2 Discs: 1 Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Number Of Discs: 1 Running Time: 106 Minutes Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2 Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6 EAN: 5060021175113 ASIN: B00005TT2E Theatrical Release Date: April 19, 2001 Release Date: April 2, 2002 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days


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Editorial Reviews: Amazon.co.uk Review IYou Can Count on Me/I starts with a terrible car crash that instantly orphans a little boy and his older sister. At film's end, that boy, now a grown-up nomad and ne'er-do-well, takes off by Greyhound bus after a brief reunion with his sister, who lives at permanent anchor in their unspoiled hometown. The sibling saga that unreels between wrenching collision and bittersweet separation celebrates the idiosyncratic ways wounded folk like Terry (Mark Ruffalo) and Sammy (Laura Linney) put one foot in front of the other, both energised and hamstrung by the knowledge that nothing is ever certain in the road-movie of life. During his visit, Terry roils Sammy's becalmed existence, mostly by "fathering"--for good and ill--her overprotected eight-year-old (Rory Culkin), sneaking him out to play empowering bar pool, later introducing him to the weaselly dad he's fantasised into a superhero. Sammy starts a torrid affair with her married boss at the bank (Matthew Broderick gives delicious bureaucratic smarm) and considers marrying her sometime suitor (Jon Tenney), sweetly dull yet dependable.p The narrative peaks here are human-sized, elevated by gentle humour and clear-eyed faith in the existential importance of these intersecting small-town lives. Linney is simply superb as Sammy, wild girl gone good, involuntarily "mothering" every man in her life. An authentic original, newcomer Ruffalo gives his modern-day Huck Finn a drawling, James Dean delivery tuned somewhere between a screwup's whine and the twang of pothead wisdom. (Hard to think of another recent film that so deftly nails down the rich dynamics of everyday conversation--the starts and stops, circumlocutions, clichés, sudden veers into revelation and eloquence.) This is that rarity, an action movie of the heart: no explosions or epiphanies, yet everything evolves through the catalysts of character and experience. --IKathleen Murphy, Amazon.com/I

Customer Reviews: Showing reviews 1-5 of 10 1 2 Next » Just about as good as movies get. March 14, 2002 7 out of 8 found this review helpful This film is about the relationship between a pair of adult siblings who have an unusual bond. This bond has been fostered by a childhood which was scarred by their parents' death in a car crash. Subsequently the brother played by Mark Ruffalo is a drifter many years later who, after being in trouble many times decides to visit his sister (Laura Linney) in a sleepy, almost comatose town in middle America. Given this synopsis one may think there is nothing much going for this film but to disregard it without seeing it is like dismissing Good Will Hunting because its about maths. You can count on me is superbly written by Keith Lonergan and features truly outstanding performances by the two main protaganists: Ruffalo and Linney, not to mention Matthew Broderick who is excellent as Linneys boss. Its not often one leaves the cinema and feels truly touched but this film certainly did that for me. If only more films could be as intelligent and genuinely emotive as this. Great performances, great film. April 13, 2002 7 out of 8 found this review helpful Kenneth Lonergan is a man with many influential frineds in Hollywood due to his flourishing career as a screenwriter par excellence. You Can Count On Me features rising Hollywood stars Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo as well as Matthew Broderick, a college friend of Lonergan's. Linney plays Sammy, a bank worker in a small town whose drifter brother, Terry, played by Ruffalo, is about to come back into her life. The relationship between Terry and Sammy is a close one, due in part to them having lost their parents in a car crash when they were young children. Sammy lives alone with her young son, and a large part of the film focuses on the blossoming relationship between Sammy's young son and his tearaway Uncle. Lonergan also focuses on the way that seeing Terry almost seems to reawaken a rebellious streak in Sammy, in both subtle and obvious ways. You Can Count On Me is a self-contained, small film, where Lonergan shows an alarming level of assuredness behind the camera, but it his script and his flair with his cast that stand out above everything else. A triumphant debut. Absolute gem about fraught sister brother relationship July 2, 2006 pointone (Bournemouth UK) 2 out of 2 found this review helpful This is a truly great film about siblings from writer/director Kenneth Lonergan. br / br /Brother and sister Samantha "Sammy" (Laura Linney) and Terry Prescott (Mark Ruffalo) are orphaned when very young and form a very close relationship. br / br /We meet them in their thirties by when Sammy has been through a disastrous marriage and is bringing up her eight year old son Rudy (fine child actor performance from Rory Culkin). An up tight woman she shies away from genuine relationships but finds release in a casual affair with her manager at the bank, then is driven by guilt to confess to the minister of her church and is disappointed when he does not condemn her. br / br /Terry is her opposite, a drifter that gets into trouble and spent some time in jail for violence, nevertheless he is a caring person that is always short of money. He believes Terry is stifling her son's development and this conflict between Sammy's extremely cautious upbringing of her son and Terry's belief in excessive freedom is a key element in the film. br / br /A wonderfully written, directed and acted film (one can believe Ruffalo when he says in an interview "we became brother and sister during the shooting of the film"), also a great mixture of classical and country music. br / A perfect example of the genre October 3, 2004 5 out of 7 found this review helpful Before his play 'This Is Our Youth' became famous in the UK for attracting everyone from Jake Gyllenhall, Hayden Christensen, Matt Damon, Summer Phoenix etc to star, Kenneth Lonergan had written and directed this small town drama in 2000.pTo give you an idea of what to expect, the most recent comparable would the similarly paced 'The Station Agent' (which I also recommend you buy)and, to a less good natured level, 'The Sweet Hereafter'. So, if your idea of drama is Nicolas Cage screeching about "having a bad day", then this is patently not for you. pThe plot has been explained on this page, so it's best if I just recommend you the consistently excellent Laura Linney as Sammy, burdened with the expectation of the older sister (especially as an elder orphan) to provide stability for her child borne, as the screenplay hints, of a wilder less restrained time in her life; and the career making performance from Mark Ruffalo as Terry, Sammy's younger brother, still equipped with a moral compass but constantly straining away from the restrictions of his family history and the, to him, suffocating nature of the small town of his birth. Essentially, the film centres around the unsettling effect Terry has on Sammy and her son, Rudy Jr, during one of his inconsistent and sudden stays.pBrought together by essentially a group of friends and admirers of Lonergan, the intimate nature of the cast shows in the fantastically natural performances (although seeing Lonergan's name in the pre credits as an actor throws you while constantly trying to guess who he is - he's the priest).pLike all the best screenplays, you aren't led directly to reasons for actions, and motives aren't explained step by step. The viewer is allowed to consider the whats and whys of the plot, which makes it all the more enjoyable.pYou're not getting guns or CGI, but if you like a character driven plot, beautifully written dialogue and excellent performances from stage 'veterans', this is for you. There is humour here too September 9, 2007 Dr. R. G. Bullock (Winchester, UK) 1 out of 1 found this review helpful Buried in this film's generally tranquil progress are episodes of humour which are more effective for being understated. Sammy's manager is the very model of a modern young manager who wants to make a mark at the very rural branch of his bank. He is always polite to the point of absurdity but still makes no concessions to the fact that Sammy is a single mother and has to pick up her son from school. She is repeatedly hauled into his office, on one occasion to be instructed to tell everyone to get rid of their customised colour schemes on their computer screens, which he considers garish and "inappropriate" for a bank. Sammy becomes increasingly angry at his pettifogging attitude and lack of care for his staff, especially herself. Despite the fact that his unpleasant wife is pregnant, Sammy seduces him. Normally Sammy is the slightly fraught junior executive or even more fraught mother and sister but here uses her unexpected sexual powers to neuter him - in a metaphorical sense. br / br /When Sammy gets increasingly despondent about her brother's behaviour in regard to her son, she thinks it is time to get the priest in. Terry is confronted at their house, without warning, by the priest with Sammy in close support. The absurdity of this situation is amplified by the 'theological' discussion that then follows. Terry is an atheist but the priest is a modern sort of chap and takes up positions which eventually strip Christianity out of what is said. Giving Terry all this rope does not make the priest's mission any more effective. br / br /Sammy also visits the priest to confess her adultery with her boss. He refuses to declare it a sin, much to Sammy's consternation. She wanted to be declared a sinner and then be given the means to extirpate it. Being offered psychological explanations is the last thing she wants to hear. br / br /I agree with the majority of the other reviews. There are aspects of this film which are only half-revealed, or rather not emphasised, and this low key approach is part of the charm of the film. Showing reviews 1-5 of 10 1 2 Next »

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