You Can Count on Me Is the Pick of the Week

Oscar-winning playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan hasn’t made that many films, but when he does, he really gives it his all, crafting stellar and fully realized portraits of flawed, realistic characters and the highly emotional relationships they have with others. His incredibly underrated 2000 directorial debut, You Can Count on Me, is definitely one ripe for rediscovery.

Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo (two of my favorite actors, both giving searing performances) are Sammy and Terry, an estranged sister and brother, reuniting years after both their parents die in a car accident, They are forced to come to terms with the tragedy while dealing their own issues outside their broken relationship. Sammy has an affair with her new, married boss Brian (Matthew Broderick) while rekindling a relationship with her ex-boyfriend Bob (Jon Tenney). She also tries to be a proper single parent to her son Rudy (Rory Culkin) during all of this. Terry, a deadbeat who has just been released from jail, tries to make some money for his suicidal girlfriend Shelia (Gaby Hoffman) while getting in and out of trouble. Things get even more complicated when Terry arrives for an extended stay, which causes he and Sammy to confront the questionable choices they made and reconcile.

Once I saw the film, it immediately became one of my favorites. It is so real and cutting. It gets right the often fractured relationships between siblings that feels completely original and intelligent, without insulting the characters and the people around them. They’re incredibly flawed but totally relatable. They feel like people we know, we hate, but deep down we love. It’s not just the performances from the main cast that are truthful, it’s also Lonergan’s dialogue that gets under your emotional skin and stays there. Yes, it feels like a film that is too painful to be mainstream, but it also comes across as one that feels way too genuine to not be shared between people.

It has been 25 years since its release and Lonergan has won awards for his other works, such as his unfairly maligned, psychological teen drama Margaret (2011) and his devastating portrait of grief Manchester by the Sea (2015), but You Can Count on Me remains his masterpiece, one that is independent and universally human.

I’m looking quite forward to the new release by Criterion (being released on both 4K UHD and Blu-ray), which has received a new 4K restoration. It also has an audio commentary by Lonergan; new interviews with Lonergan, Linney, Ruffalo, and Broderick; and a trailer. It also has a new essay by playwright Rebecca Gilman and the script of the original one-act play.

I 100% recommend the film, and if you’re in the mood for a compelling, multiple-character study, then You Can Count on Me is one of the very best and should make a worthy addition to your collection.

Other standout releases:

Carnal Knowledge 4K UHD and Blu-ray (Criterion): Mike Nicholas’ controversial but unsettlingly frank 1971 classic traces the sexual and emotional confusion of two college buddies (Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel) through the ’50s and ’60s.

All We Imagine as Light (Criterion Premieres): An acclaimed drama about following the lives of three women working in the same hospital in India as the country modernizes itself by gentrification and nationalism.

Final Destination: Bloodlines (New Line/Warner): The latest sequel in the long-running, grisly horror franchise centers on a college student plagued by a recurring violent nightmare, who returns home to find the one person who can break the curse and save her family from a horrifying fate.

Northern Lights (Kino): A bittersweet story of two young lovers forced into a political struggle unleashed by farmers against the grain trade, the banks, and the railroads of the Northern Plains.