The Upside of Anger

Before going to this movie I always thought that the upside of anger was the make up sex afterwards. I still think that. Joan Allen and Kevin Costner are both flawless as dissolute middle aged alcoholics who have lost their respective ways in lives that did not live up to their preconceived expectations. Their acting aside, and I hope to God for both their sakes that they were acting, this is a slow moving bore of a movie. My friend Stacy (I went with Stacy and Jen) whispered to me at one point, “I keep waiting for something to happen…” So do I Stace. When it finally does it is so anticlimactic (and a little Delores Claiborne, that’s your hint in case you still want to see it) that we all found ourselves not caring. There is one really funny scene although I should point out that we were the only ones in the theatre to laugh which only points out that my friends have the same sick sense of humor as I do. The family which by this point includes the character played by Costner are having dinner with the inclusion of the youngest daughters (she is truly a peach of a gal) middle aged disgusting radio producer boyfriend. Joan’s character reviles him and is staring at him from the head of the table with unabashed revulsion while he loudly and obviously slurps his soup seated as he is down the table. The camera pans slowly down the table from where it had initially lingered on her contemptuous face to rest upon this pig eating at his trough. BANG! There’s blood all over the walls, Costner’s face the table, his nose falls into one of the daughters’ soup, and his head is gone. (This is where my friends and I are hysterically laughing in an otherwise silent audience) BLINK and things are back to normal. She’d only fantasized his slaughter. The daughters’ are all wonderfully acted as well but the script…..mom is a terrible alcoholic for 3 long years with an alcoholic boyfriend to boot and no one of the kids is really affected. Just like real life huh?
Dinner was enjoyed by all at Wu Liang Ye 215 East 86th Street. We shared 3 dishes; one beef, one chicken, and one tofu. I apologize that I neglected to write down the specifics last night so cannot today tell you exactly what they were. However all were spicy cooked in authentic Sichuan style and delicious. I’ve eaten at this restaurant a couple of times and it is consistently good food. Stacy had heard that it was really ‘authentic’ Chinese food but having been to China I can tell you that outside of a couple of restaurants that I’ve been to in NY’s China town I’ve never had ‘authentic’ Chinese food anywhere. But that’s just me.