Review: The Greatest

Likeable 18 year-old Aaron Taylor-Johnson takes an ill-advised stop in the middle of the road one night and is killed by an oncoming truck. His relatively new girlfriend Carey Mulligan was in their car at the time too, but relatively unharmed. The film deals with each of his family members’ grief, with maths professor dad Pierce Brosnan closing up somewhat, whilst despondent mum Susan Sarandon becomes obsessed with surveillance footage of the accident that suggests her eldest son (‘The Greatest’ of the film’s stupid title) lived for about 15 minutes after the accident and the now comatose truck driver who struck him (Michael Shannon) may have had a conversation with him before he died. When a heavily pregnant Mulligan (the baby was apparently conceived on the very night Taylor-Johnson died!) turns up at their doorstep looking to get to know her expectant baby’s family more (she wants to keep it), Sarandon is less than enthused, but Brosnan does his best to be welcoming as she apparently has nowhere else to stay. Meanwhile, Sarandon and Brosnan (whose marriage was strained before the accident) have another, younger son Johnny Simmons, likes to get high, but also attends a grief support group where he meets the somewhat likeminded Zoe Kravitz.

 

There’s nothing at all wrong with this 2010 family drama from debut writer-director Shana Feste…except it has been done to death. All of the performances here are outstanding, it’s just that there’s no more to say in this family grief subgenre that hasn’t already been said by “Ordinary People”, “Moonlight Mile”, “Reservation Road”, “Imaginary Heroes”, and “In the Bedroom”, and casting “Moonlight” co-star Susan Sarandon here as yet another grieving mum simply reminds you of this fact (and of the fact that “Moonlight Mile” was a bit better). Therefore, the waterworks never really come, and the film never quite draws you in emotionally the way you dearly want it to, though it does come close at times.

 

The fact that it does come ever-so close to winning you over is entirely due to the committed cast, although the film does also drive home the point that when someone dies it makes everyone else seem to become helpless. This married couple seem like they don’t know how to work now, even though things were already fractured. It’s actually hard to watch Sarandon here, and that’s a compliment. The woman she plays is practically losing her mind with grief. You know you’re in serious grieving mode when the morning alarm goes off and your first instinct is to cry. But this really does feel like “Ordinary People” with the parts all jumbled up. Sarandon is somewhat unlikeable at times, as was Mary Tyler Moore, but she is also shown to be very emotional and vulnerable, unlike the hardened Mary Tyler Moore. Sarandon is consumed with wanting to get answers, Mary Tyler Moore just wanted to forget and put up a front for her society friends. So it’s a shame that the spectre of other films hangs over this one. Hell, even Pierce Brosnan is pretty much doing Donald Sutherland from “Ordinary People”. And doing rather well, I might add. If you don’t think Brosnan is much of an actor, watch him in this. He’s subtle; stoic, yet kinda vulnerable too. I think he actually deserved an Oscar nomination for his performance here (As did Donald Sutherland in “Ordinary People”. It’s a crime that Judd Hirsch and Mary Tyler Moore were nominated, but not Sutherland, who was the best thing in it!). He gives it his all, and you’ve never, ever seen him like this. He probably knew all the places to go for the part too, given his own experiences with grief (That he serves as EP says a lot).

 

Carey Mulligan probably doesn’t get as much to play with here, but she is nonetheless immensely appealing. I’ve become very fond of her, actually and she gives the third top-notch performance in the film. In a smaller, but still very solid turn, Johnny Simmons is completely convincing as the younger brother (One of the best things about the film is that the brothers apparently coexisted amicably, a rarity in films and TV). Michael Shannon, who for the most part plays the most intense-looking comatose man since “Patrick”, gets only one dialogue scene, but as he often can, makes it count.

 

The “Ordinary People” connection truly becomes too much to ignore during an argument between Brosnan and Sarandon that sounds exactly like one that Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore had, just with the dialogue mixed up between genders this time. It’s a shame that familiarity holds me back from getting into what should be a truly emotional film experience. There are still a couple of really raw and uncomfortable moments, and there’s not one poor performance in the film. The central trio of Susan Sarandon, Pierce Brosnan, and Carey Mulligan are especially good. Kudos too, for the awful/brilliantly funny decision to play Bertie Higgins’ appalling ‘Key Largo’ at one point. Seriously, that song has some of the worst lyrics of all-time.  

 

Rating: C+