All Is Bright

Cast of Characters:

Dennis - Paul Giamatti

Rene - Paul Rudd

Olga - Sally Hawkins

Therese - Amy Landecker

Director - Phil Morrison

Screenplay - Melissa James Gibson

Rated R for language and brief nudity

      Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti and Paul Rudd star in the Christmas in October dramedy All Is Bright. See what they did there? It's called All Is Bright, yet they look so unhappy on the poster. What clever marketing.

      Dennis (Paul Giamatti) is an ex-con trying to land back on his feet. Things don't look so bright (Ha! See what I did there?) when he returns home to his family to find out that not only is his wife Therese (Amy Landecker) planning on getting married to another man, she also told their daughter that he died of cancer a few years back. 

      Wanting to go straight, he hooks back up with his former partner in crime, Rene (Paul Rudd) - who has already gone straight and would be the man Therese is looking to marry - for some work. Rene, who does work selling trees in New York City, offers Dennis a job which hopefully brings about that second chance he needs.

      There's really not much to say here, 'cause quite frankly this film doesn't have much to say to begin with. It's odd considering there's no way Paul Giamatti and Paul Rudd together in a film would ever look bad on paper. Unfortunately, that's as far as the good aspect goes. It's certainly not the fault of Giamatti and Rudd who work well together and the cast as a whole is fine. I blame the writing and direction 'cause what Phil Morrison (who directed the much more effective Junebug) and Melissa James Gibson have managed to do is take two great actors and stick them inside a cheesy dialogued, tediously paced, 100 minute long bore. It's a wonder how Giamatti and Rudd were able to squeeze some performances out of enough direction to make you assume there probably wasn't even a director on set and a script as thinly written as this one. On top of that, I failed to find any point or meaning in the story other than Giamatti's Dennis just moping about for the film's entirety. I get it. He failed in life. It sucks, but it's also Christmas and he's making Ebenezer and the Grinch look like Tiny Tim and Hermey the Misfit Elf. I'm not saying you have to be cheery to the point of suffocation like some Hallmark sap fest or be all zany like Surviving Christmas - dear God, you definitely don't - but perk the story up just a little bit. When their little tree shop is going nowhere why not use the fact that they're former scam artists more? If done right, that approach could've been funny, a bit dark, maybe lively too, anything but what I got to see: laughs that rarely work and a heart that's hardly beating 'cause it was probably bored to death. There's also an intriguing story angle involving Dennis and his daughter, who believes he's dead, that could've delivered on being all moody like the film wants to be, but with some growth along the way. That angle's hardly touched on as much as it could've and should've though. When we finally get that heartfelt moment at the end with the daughter, you hardly care 'cause you hardly know much about her character.

      This film isn't horrible. It certainly isn't in the aforementioned Surviving Christmas territory, which made me wanna burn my parents' Christmas tree down and then renounce the holiday altogether, but it's just not that good either. The performances are what you'd expect from Giamatti and Rudd, and there's a nice little subplot between Giamatti and Sally Hawkins as a Jewish maid he meets while selling trees. Those moments kinda save this film from falling apart into a complete pile of crap, but the weaknesses still outweigh the good. Although I won't go as far as to say you might as well rent Big Fat Liar with Paul Giamatti instead, I still can't think of a reason for you to see this either. I give All Is Bright a C- (★★).