You Can Count on Me (2000)

I love this movie so much

Captivating movie !

Best movie of this year hands down!

Blistering performances.

Sammy Prescott (Laura Linney) is the lending officer of the small local bank in Scottville, New York. Terry Prescott (Mark Ruffalo) is the irresponsible one who comes to town looking for money. They lost their parents at a young age and Sammy has always taken care of Terry. She has a son Rudy (Rory Culkin). She hates his father but she's coy about it to him. Bob Steegerson (Jon Tenney) is her boyfriend and Brian Everett (Matthew Broderick) is the new demanding bank manager. With Brian looking over her shoulders, Sammy is forced to let Terry take care of Rudy.This movie works because Linney and Ruffalo can project their sibling relationship right from the start. The script brings it out of the actors from the first moment they meet. Then the movie allows these two characters to expand and show different layers. They are infinitely fascinating and compelling to the last frame.

A prodigal brother returns to his small hometown and bonds with his nephew. Meanwhile, his sister is having trouble with her new boss.The uncle who drives us all crazy but it the centre of endless wonderful anecdotes. Every family has one, I'm sure. Mine decided to climb in our open window one night because he didn't want to wake the house. He fell through the Christmas tree and our dog attacked him, which woke the whole neighbourhood. Mark Ruffalo as uncle Terry is darkly manic, providing the man of the house role for nephew Rudy (a broody Rory Culkin) though without the necessary sense of boundaries. When Rudy sinks the winning ball in a pool game, you know it is a moment that will live with him forever. And also that he shouldn't be there in the first place.Sammy (an impressive Laura Linney) focuses on the latter while being painfully aware of the former. She tears into her brother while also being aware that she has her own difficult to exorcise demons. Her solution to asserting herself with a prickly new boss is to seduce him. She has a nice boyfriend, who gives her what she wants but without the violins and chills. But she is old enough to know you can't always have violins and chills, but young enough to grab them when the opportunity arises.The script authentically portrays a parade of small-town characters: the boss who is a socially limited jobsworth. The clergyman who is weary but morally centered. The estranged Dad. With every new character you find yourself thinking "I know someone like that." The tensions and exchanges between characters are realistic and resonate with our own experiences. And just like our own experiences, there are no pat solutions. Should Sammy marry Bob? Is Terry going to be OK? Is Rudy Snr really the biological father of Rudy Jnr? The film raises the questions, not to answer them, but to hold up a mirror to the minutiae of everyday life.This is a well-written, finely acted relationships drama that hits on a few home truths.

It has happened to big-screen actresses for decades: She will appear in a dozen films--sometimes, dozens--in relative obscurity, before finally appearing in a picture that makes the audience really sit up and take notice; her so-called "breakthrough role." For example, it happened for Jean Arthur in 1935's "The Whole Town's Talking," for Ava Gardner in 1946's "The Killers," for Susan Hayward in 1947's "Smash-up: The Story of a Woman," for Marilyn Monroe in 1953's "Niagara," for Brigitte Bardot in 1956's "...And God Created Woman." And for modern-day actress Laura Linney, it happened in writer/director Kenneth Lonergan's 2000 film "You Can Count On Me." In the role that put Linney on the radar of the greater public, the actress plays a young single mother of an 8-year-old boy. Samantha "Sammy" Prescott, when we first meet her, is going through a rough patch in her small (fictitious) town of Scottsville, in upstate New York. Her new boss at the bank (Matthew Broderick) has turned out to be an officious, micromanaging prig; she soon enters into a fairly torrid affair with this unhappily married man (a man with a baby on the way, to boot!) even though an old boyfriend has just proposed to her! And perhaps most distracting and distressing of all, her shiftless, wandering, ne'er-do-well younger brother, Terry (finely played by Mark Ruffalo), has just moved into her house for an extended visit. The unfolding relationships between brother and sister, Terry and his nephew Rudy (Rory Culkin; yes, Macaulay's younger brother), and employee and employer make up the bulk of this sweet, sad picture.Warm and touching, sentimental yet startlingly realistic, the film boasts any number of wonderful scenes. Among my favorites: the restaurant reunion between Sammy and Terry, after a hiatus of two years; Terry takes his young nephew to a local dive bar to teach him to play pool; Sammy has her pastor (played by Lonergan himself) do an intervention for Terry; and, perhaps best of all, Sammy bids a tearful farewell to her brother at a bus stop. Lonergan's script is wise and astute, and his characters are all recognizable. You've met these people before; they are very much the stuff of real life; flawed people, one and all, trying to do good and scrape some happiness out of life. Lonergan's script rings painfully true, and his (first-time) direction is sensitive. The picture, filmed in summertime Margaretville and Phoenicia, NY, in the Catskills, beautifully evokes small-town life, and a mournful score for cello and oboe--seemingly more appropriate for a 1960s Bergman film--works wonders at creating a wistful atmosphere. And while all four of the film's principals are excellent, it is Laura Linney who really does own this picture. She is simply outstanding here, remarkably in control of every nuance of her performance; already a highly skilled actress, despite having only appeared in 11 films before this one (not counting five television films). For this role, Linney was deservedly nominated for an Academy Award, ultimately "losing" to Julia Roberts' turn in "Erin Brockovich." As a consolation, she DID win the National Society of Film Critics Award, the New York Film Critics Award, and the Toronto Film Critics Association Award for her truly memorable work in this film. (I should also mention that Lonergan's script garnered more non-Oscar awards than I can conveniently mention here.) Today, of course, Linney is regarded as one of the top actresses of her generation; in my opinion, the best combination of looks and talent that we've got right now, especially since Michelle Pfeiffer doesn't seem to be working much these days. (I, uh, expect that you've got your own, necessarily highly subjective opinion on this subject!) Seeing Linney's fearless performance this past fall in the Broadway production of "Time Stands Still" was especially satisfying; how nice, then, for this viewer, to realize that even 10 years before this stage triumph, Linney was in total command of her medium. Think I'm going overboard? I don't usually gush over modern-day actresses, being a fan of more classic Hollywood performers, so when I say Linney is "simply outstanding" here, to quote the film's title...well, you know....

This movie is a heart-warming depiction of a group of people in a small town whose lives come together and change. Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney are excellent in this story that starts with a very sad meeting between the two siblings but rebounds with the twists of fate that make for a complicated family adventure. Through it all, there is humor and dialogue that enliven this film, set in a small town in New York state where the two grew up and lost both parents. At one point Linney tries to navigate the waves created by her boss, brother, boyfriend, ex-husband and child. Both she and her brother are flawed human beings but they make the effort to live up to their family commitments. Matthew Broderick plays a rather unusual role among a cast of unusual characters. The other actors, Rory Culkin as the son and Jon Tenney as Bob, the boyfriend, round out the main cast. The film does not bring a complete resolution to the problems but we feel that a hopeful chapter in their lives has been told.