Nick Halsey has just been fired from his job of 16 years as vice-president of sales. It wasn’t a problem with his work. It was a problem with his drinking. There may have been an incident with a woman at a conference in Denver. It’s hard for him to explain his behavior because he can’t remember what happened. It seems though, from the way he walks and talks (one part resignation, one part vague guilt mixed in with a measure of self-loathing/pity) that he certainly believes he could have done something bad. On the way home from work he stops by the mini-mart and stocks up on PBR. He intends to drink it as quick as is comfortably possible. The house he comes home to is empty. All the locks on the doors have been changed. All of Nick’s furniture and stuff has been moved to the front lawn. On the door is a letter from his wife explaining that this is the last of these letters. Nick finds his easy chair, plops down on it, and continues drinking. His suburban neighborhood has bylaws that state a yard sale can be held for, at the most, five days. So given the front of selling his stuff, Nick has about that amount of time to hang out on his front lawn, drink some more, and decide whether he has hit rock bottom or if there is still plenty of self-destruction left to go.
“Everything Must Go” is directed by Dan Rush and based on a short story by Raymond Carver. I haven’t read any of Carver’s stuff but after seeing this movie and Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” (itself a very good movie that compiles several of Raymond Carver’s stories), he makes my impossibly long list of books that would be so great to read some day if only it didn’t take so damn long to read books. The movie itself is very much like an elongated short story. It is contained entirely within five days, it takes place almost entirely on Nick’s front lawn, and attention is spent more on small details than big action. The ambition and budget is limited. For what it is, as they say, it is what it is, and as they also say, it does a fine job of doing what it does. There is nothing wrong with “Everything Must Go.” It’s just a small movie. If you are in the mood for that sort of thing, add a star or two to the rating up top.
Nick is played by comedian Will Ferrell in a role that is hard to believe anyone else could pull off as well. The sight of a man living on his front lawn with all his stuff is absurd and the location of this movie, being a suburb in sunny Arizona, lends the movie lots of light, which bounces off all the furniture in bright colored hues. All the lawns around him are bright green. Nick even owns a Tiki Bar and a George Foreman grill. This lends the movie a cheery tone even if its subject is so dreary. Nick isn’t getting drunk in a dark bar like Nic Cage in “Leaving Las Vegas.” He’s out in the open and fresh air. A comedian like Ferrell looks like he belongs in such a situation. And since all of this creates such an expectation of comedy, it is that much more effective as a drama when Ferrell doesn’t try to go for any jokes whatsoever. Sure there may be some witty asides to smile with (especially the talks with a bored kid played by Christopher Jordan Wallace whom Nick hires as a salesperson), but overall this movie takes alcoholism seriously. And watching a funny man that is too drunk to be funny is not funny. It’s especially sad. Even more so when one considers that the irresponsible man-boy characters that Will Ferrell usually portrays would perhaps at one point meet the same fate if they lived in the real world. It has been noted with surprise from many critics that Will Ferrell is a good actor in this movie. I agree but do not take it as a surprise. I can only assume that those critics don’t consider comedy acting as “Acting!” Watch “Old School” again and see Will Ferrell strike some of the same notes he does here. Besides being hilarious in that movie, he also realistically loses both his wife and home to drinking.
I’m sure there are a myriad of reasons why some people drink too much. Nick Hasley here seems to be doing it almost as a self-imposed punishment. A major theme of the movie involves Nick’s quest to find a reason as to why he deserves to be a happy functioning sober person. In this search, he employs the kid, a neighbor who just moved in next-door, played by Rebecca Hall, and his AA sponsor played by Michael Pena. He even goes so far as to contact a woman, played by Laura Dern, he hardly knew in high school and hasn’t spoken to in 20 years. She wrote in his yearbook that she considered him to be a diamond in the rough and suspected him to be nice even though he was a jock. So Nick, because I guess he was curious as to why someone who hardly knew him would think something like that, looks her up and shows up on her doorstep. He says he was just in the neighborhood, but come on, this is the suburbs. Nobody goes anywhere on accident there.
And here I’m going to now pause and take my geeky liberty to talk about city planning and real estate development. If anyone living in the suburbs decides to watch this movie, please take a special interest in the scene between Will Ferrell and Laura Dern. It is the perfect example of why every house needs a porch. A grown man that just shows up on your doorstep after 20 years is inherently a weird thing. Under no circumstances should that man be let inside the house. This is something Laura Dern conveys quite explicitly in her body language. However, it is perfectly fine to talk to him on the front porch. After all, there is a possibility that he isn’t insane and you still have the ability of being able to walk inside the house and lock the door. Thus, having a porch gives one the ability to talk to strangers without sacrificing privacy or safety. It is elemental to making friends in a neighborhood. This nice conversation could not have realistically happened had Dern not had a porch. Now contrast this with the fact that Nick’s house doesn’t have a porch. In fact, even though this neighborhood is in Arizona, a place with such great weather that porches would be the most obvious things ever, none of the surrounding houses have porches. That is distressingly normal in suburbs that have been built in the last quarter century. What effect this has on the neighborhood is keenly observed in this movie. Take note that the only neighbors Nick has regular conversations with during his five day yard sale is the woman who has recently moved in across the street and the kid on the bike. In my opinion, this is completely realistic. Really, the only time one can strike up a random conversation with a suburban neighbor is the week they move in. After that it is awkward and usually an invasion of privacy. After all, you need a reason to invite yourself into somebody’s living room. Without a porch, taking the initiative to talk to people in the suburbs is more likely to be rude than friendly. The kid by the way doesn’t live in the neighborhood. His mother works there as a home nurse. She can’t afford daycare so she brings him along. He spends his days biking the desolate streets. He talks to Nick mainly out of sheer boredom. That too, I can personally attest, is completely realistic.
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