You can count on me

You can count on me is a family reunion drama that contains impressive performances full of nuance and has an adroit observational tone. The original screenplay (by director Kenneth Lonergan) veers away from cliche and pat conclusions, imbuing the characters with a realistic quality. Sammy and Terry are orphaned at a young age when their parents are killed in a car accident. As adults, the siblings are estranged, having made divergent choices. Sammy is a single parent with an eight-year-old son, Rudy, living in the house she was brought up in, working in a bank. She lives by a strict moral code, bound by religion and duty, but is entirely capable of hypocrisy and self-delusion. Terry, by contrast, is a wild loner, full of rage, self-destructive by nature but charming in his own humorous way. He doesn’t believe in Sammy’s ordered conservative life and inadvertently challenges this, creating chaos with his presence. It is Terry and Rudy’s strengthening relationship that acts as a catalyst, causing an irrevocable torrent of truths that upend the family dynamics. The personal and familial dilemmas contained within the script are identifiable and the film sensitively deals with themes of oppression and personal choice. Cast includes: Laura Linney, Matthew Broderick, Mark Ruffalo, Rory Culkin.