Everything Must Go (2011)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on May 20, 2011 @ tonymacklin.net.

Everything Must Go is not a bad movie, but saying in the credits that it's "based on" a story by Raymond Carver is a blunder. It may even be a fraud.

I suppose this is a way for a novice writer/director (Dan Rush) to try to get some unearned "cred," but it's a cheap ploy.

Most of the reviews of the movie repeat that the movie is "based on" a Carver story. Some say "loosely."

Saying that Everything Must Go is based on a story by Raymond Carver is like saying a ham dinner is based on Hamlet.

Or, there's a fishing pole in the movie, so it's based on Mark Twain. Where did all the allusions in the movie to Japan come from -- Nobel Prize for Literature winner Kawabata Yasunari?

Using one general idea -- an alienated man having a yard sale -- and naming one nameless character is not basis. Especially since the movie drops the other two characters in the story and their dance which is the major action in the story. The story is titled, "Why Don't You Dance?" The movie is Everything Must Go, especially Carver. Ok, it keeps one name, Jack, but not Jack's character.

I had hoped that Everything Must Go at least had the spirit of Carver, but it doesn't. "People who know Carver will know the kind of tone we're getting into," the tone-deaf Rush told Christine Spines.

Carver's tone is cold, often bitter, and human. He finds ironic meaning in the ordinary. He drinks his alcohol straight.

Rush serves his with a cherry and an umbrella, which is ok. But it's not Carver.

Everything Must Go is the story of Nick Halsey (Will Ferrell) a salesman living in a suburb in Arizona. He is fired from his job and left by his wife, so he sits on his lawn and drinks beer.

He probably is more vapid than any character Carver ever thought of. He certainly has interactions with other characters who never crossed Carver's mind.

Nick meets Kenny (Christopher Jordan Wallace), an African-American boy with whom he becomes friends. Carver wasn't even friendly with his own children.

There is some uplift that Rush does well, but it is anti-Carver.

Rush's last line, "Everything is not lost" is far away from Carver.

Rush was a director of tv commercials before making this first feature. When you think of Raymond Carver, the first thing you think of is commercials, isn't it?

One wishes Rush had pilfered a couple of ideas without giving any credit. But instead he stole Carver's name.

Will Ferrell leaves the manic part of his personality behind as the drab alcoholic. Christopher Jordan Wallace is an agreeable young actor. Rebecca Hall is solid, as always, as a new neighbor. And Laura Dern brings warmth to Rush's concoction of a former high school classmate of Nick. Michael Pena is steady as Nick's AA sponsor.

But these characters are not Carver's, and would never be. Then don't use his name.

Water down your own drinks, not Raymond's.

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