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An Unfinished Life

2005, Movie, PG-13, 107 mins

An Unfinished Life: Review

UNFINISHED LIFE, AN
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Lasse Hallstrom's leisurely drama about remorse, forgiveness and spiritual healing is a film of big emotions and ferociously small gestures. Widowed Jean Gilkyson (Jennifer Lopez) once promised her 10-year-old daughter, Griff (Becca Gardner), that if Jean's umpteenth abusive boyfriend, Gary (Damian Lewis), beat her up again, she'd leave. When he inevitably hits her again, Jean and Griff take to the road with little more than a map, the belongings they can stuff into a couple of suitcases and some cash scraped together by Jean's sympathetic coworkers. Before they've even decided where to go, fate decides for them: Jean's old car dies in the middle of nowhere and their funds run out, so they retreat to the Ishawooa, Wyo., ranch of her estranged father-in-law, Einar Gilkyson (Robert Redford). Her decision stirs up a hornet's nest of surprises. Griff is shocked that her paternal grandfather isn't dead, since Jean told her he was. Einar had no idea he had a granddaughter — the last time he saw Jean was at her husband's funeral a decade earlier, and she neglected to mention that she was pregnant. Jean is shocked by the wrack and ruin of the Gilkyson homestead, by the disfiguring injuries that a bear inflicted on Einar's longtime ranch hand and friend, Mitch (Morgan Freeman), and by the changes in Einar himself. After his son's death in a car crash (Jean was driving), Einar went on an epic bender, was abandoned by his long-suffering wife and blames himself for Mitch's mauling. He reluctantly allows Jean and Griff to stay until Jean's saved enough for them to move on; while she slings hash under the watchful eye of earth-mother Nina (Camryn Manheim) and romances handsome sheriff Crane Curtis (Josh Lucas), Griff befriends Mitch and slowly worms her way into Einar's good graces. Hallstrom's resolutely old-fashioned film, based on Mark Spragg's novel, is sympathetic to the internalized WASP way of grief, and enriched by Redford's and Freeman's subtle, superlative performances. Supporting players Lucas, Manheim and Lewis (whom you'd never know was English) are equally strong, and newcomer Gardner holds her own with refreshing ease; in fact, the only weak link in the cast is Lopez. She is not flat-out terrible — just there, saying her lines and filling out her sexy-mama costumes without ever being the least bit convincing as a small-town girl who's so busy wallowing in guilt that she can't move forward. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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