User Reviews

I hadn't heard of this movie before and I checked out today. This was a very straight forward movie and quite refreshing in today's time of twist and turns at every stop. John Cusack did a great job with his character but I think the girls could have been better or the dialog could've been better for their characters. But overall the story was very solid and entertaining.

Spoiler One scene I loved was where John's character called the home phone from the pay phone at the gas station. I just couldn't imagine the feeling of having to talk to an answering machine because that is the only way you could hear your dead wife's voice and to look to that recording for guidance because you have no where else to go, have no idea what to do....was just amazing and it actually made me tear up.

Definitely worth checking out.

It's hard to dramatize a man who can't talk. In Grace Is Gone Stanley Philips (John Cusack) is such a man. Stanley learns that his wife has died in Iraq and cannot bring himself to tell his two little girls, 12-year-old Heidi (Shélan O'Keefe) and 8-year-old Dawn (Gracie Bednarczyk). This is a sensitive, well-acted tale (with terrific work by Cusack and the girls), but it's rather excruciating to watch. The movie is a long slow wait for the moment when the father finally finds the courage to tell his daughters about the tragic event.

Cusack is remarkable especially in the early scenes where we see him as a manager of a big-box home supplies store, plodding, bespectacled, ordinary: even his walk bespeaks disappointment and lowered expectations. He had lousy eyesight but cheated to get into the Army because he wanted so badly to serve. Later his deception was discovered and he was expelled, but in basic training he met his wife Grace, who has been sent to Iraq, leaving Stanley behind with the girls. He's grumpy with them, bossy in a way that might work better for a couple of boys, but mostly reflecting a depression and guilt he can't admit to. He pretends everything is okay, but in the opening he is awkwardly attending a military wives' support for women in his place, left behind while their spouses are in harm's way in the Middle East.

He can't speak, even then. When the two soldiers come to the door with the bad news, he at first won't let them in. And he refuses their help and just sits.

It goes on like that. Stanley takes the girls out of school, avoiding his job, driving to Enchanted Gardens in Florida. It's a long detour around the elephant in the room. For the audience it's an increasingly painful and tedious wait, suspense over a moment that will only be the beginning of the real story of coping with grief (such as was depicted, for instance, in Nanni Moretti's film The Son's Room).

On the way south Stanley detours to visit their grandmother's house, and instead finds his younger brother, John (Alexander Nivola), a bearded, smoking, unemployed high school dropout working on his GRE and thinking of law or medical school. John is an angry and honest 32-year-old who provokes a political conflict. He calls Bush "your monkey President" and shows himself to be violently opposed to the Iraq war. Stanley insists it is noble to serve. He will not hear of anything else and stifles the girls when John asks their opinion. Is the movie saying one reason for Stanley's implosion is that what's happened calls all his patriotism into question, and that his non-communication with the girls comes from his rigid politics? Heidi also is a doubter, or a worrier. It emerges that she has not been sleeping at night. When she calls school to tell them they're away, she meets understanding and pity. The subtlety of first director Strause's screenplay is the delicacy with which he hints at the suspicions of the older girl, and perhaps of the younger girl as well. Before the moment of truth arrives, it's more and more clear that nobody thinks anything is okay.

Grace Is Gone is a sensitive movie but it goes weak in key places. Strause cuts the sound in the revelatory scene just when Stanley gets to the hardest part of telling the girls the truth. The film in effect cops out just the way the father has been doing all along. In the end the film turns into a Hallmark card. We and the accomplished cast deserved better.

I saw this movie the other day, and I hadn't heard about it before, so basically I thought the advertising for it wasn't all that great. But when I watched it, I found it to be similar to the way a real family would act.

John Cusack is not in is best performance by any means, but I felt that he portrayed a good depiction of a man who has just lost his wife. The sisters acted like real sisters would, fighting with each other, annoying their father, saying "are we there yet" every 10 seconds. This is what made me give the movie a 7/10, which I believe is deserves.

I did have a couple of problems with the movie though. When Cusack takes the family to his mother's house, where was she? Is it just the uncle who lives there? And I found the oldest daughter to be quite disturbed, even before her mother passed away.

***SPOILERS*** Deeply moving film about coping with a tragic death and how it effects the person who's trying to keep it from his two young daughters knowing quite well he can't keep it from them forever. It's when local Home Depot manager Stan Phillips, John Cusack,got the news that his wife Grace, Dana Lynne Gihooley, was killed in action in Iraq that his entire world turned upside down. With him now having to deal with Grace never coming home he has to find a way to tell his and Garce's two young daughters Heidi & Dawn, Shelan O'Keefe & Gracie Bednarezyk, the terrible news about their mom's passing. Not quite knowing what to do Stan decides to take the two girls on a trip from their home in suburban Minnesota to Florida to where they alway wanted to visit the state's "Enchanted Gardens".

On his trip south Stan stops off at his grandma's place only to find his homeless and unemployed good for nothing brother John, Alessandro Nivola, sleeping there. It's during a heated conversation with John,with both Heidi & Dawn not present, Stan tells him that his wife Grace was killed in Iraq. John a lifelong pacifist who, like what turned out to be the majority of Americans. was totally against the war changed his opinion about it. In him knowing that Stan can't accept that his wife Grace died for a not a noble and righteous cause. Not as Stan believes in order for Grace to protect her country and family from a foreign invader.

It's later that Heidi starts to put the pieces together in realizing her dad's very strange behavior. Why is he acting so out of character and what's with this calling her mom and Stan's wife Grace at home in Minnesota and leaving long and & rambling massages while she's supposed to be some 8,000 miles away in far off Iarq! Has her dad suddenly gone off his rocker or is he hiding something from both her and her kid sister Dawn?

****SPOILERS*** In the end after finally getting to visit Florida's "Enchanted Gardens" Stan decides that he has to tell his girls the truth that he's been keeping from them all this time. And he does it in a very touching way siting by the shore with no audio but music showing how both Heidi, who may have already known, and Dawn reacting to he news. It was evadable for Stan to come clean and tell his daughters the truth in what happened to their mom but as it turned out they took it a lot better then he did. But they did get a chance to visit the "Enchanted Gardens" that in some way took most of the sting out of it!

James Strouse (director/writer), should have cut loose of his "baby" and given it to someone with experience shooting a movie. Obviously, everyone called in favors to get this movie finished. Why is Steve Martin listed as Executive Producer in the DVD and not on IMDb? Did someone rethink their association? I felt this movie was sad and it had nothing to do with the story line. Cusak, I am sorry. I love you, dude. Your acting is great. This movie was not. I always fall asleep on nights we rent movies. This movie kept me awake because I could not believe this was written, produced, released. Are you kidding me? Everyone, think about what films you are investing in. Does your gut tell you, "This is not helpful to the world at large"? Go with your gut. Write a movie about your gut and all of it's complexities. And when your gut is driving to a Florida theme park, try not to use a carmount in that scene.

This movie won the Audience Award for dramatic film at Sundance 2007 (and a screen writing award), but I found it to be the most disappointing and shallow of the films I saw at the festival. John Cusack gives a great performance as Stanley, a father who's trying to figure out how to tell his two daughters (8 and 12) that their mother has been killed in the Iraq War. The movie is a big-time tearjerker, but aside from the broad-stroke melodrama, I found it to be emotionally vacant.

We're never given any real indication of what's going on in Stanley's head. At one point, his hippie dropout brother (Stanley is a conservative war supporter) provides some helpful exposition about Cusack and his late wife, but the writer/director never seems to have heard of the "show, don't tell" rule. The only concrete demonstrations of Stanley's distress we ever get are a series of shots of him staring into space. We never find out if Stanley's political beliefs have been challenged (or strengthened) by his experience, or whether his belief that his wife died fighting a just cause made it any easier (or harder) to cope with his loss.

In fact, the movie seems to have decided to portray Stanley's emotional confusion by not having him express any emotion at all, and the only insight we gather is that it's really, really, really, really, really hard to tell your children that their mother has died.

And in the end, any tears generated are not due to any particular skill in writing or directing, but simply because of the audience's reaction to how horrible it is for ANY parent to have to tell their young children that their other parent has died. To me, that's a cheat; the movie doesn't provide any sort of insight into Stanley's feelings and relies on the audience to provide all the emotion.

Cusack supplies a fine performance with the limited material he's been given (as do the two daughters), but this movie doesn't supply much else besides cheap tears. Watch for it to become a monster hit and pick up a basket of Oscar nominations.

My summary is correct, This drama of a man whose wife was killed in Irag & the trip he takes to a Disney like theme park with his 2 daughters ( aged 8 1/2 & 12 1/2) before he tells them of their Mothers dying. This is a long trip from Ill. to Fla. is way too long .it becomes a big bore.

To me there are some very unrealistic scenes. One is a side trip to his boyhood home.Mom ain't there but slovenly brother is, & they seem mismatched.

John Cuscak is the father, He really cant do wrong in a role, but here he does not have good direction. The 2 daughters are good,But here is an inconsistency. They go to a store in a mall to buy clothes. The girls buy dresses (one for each)& they wear them to the Theme Park. Since when in this day & age do pre-teen girls wear dresses to a theme park.,There was no scenes of them squabbling about the purchase. An other thing on the theme park, they seemed to be the only ones there.(yes there were other on the rides with them, But these looked like stock shots, One more item in the various large motels they stayed,you saw hardly anyone else but them.

This was not a very well thought-out production.

Nice scenery & that is about it.

Ratings: ** (out of 4) 63 points (out of 100) IMDb 5 (out of 10)

Some users have commented that the film barely mentions Iraq, I would disagree. It is true that the film is centered on the death of Cusack's wife rather than the manner of it, but that's what makes it more compelling and heart-rending. The film is all about Iraq because it shows the fall-out of the war for one family. There is a fair bit of commentary as well, it is simply subtle. The film deals with issues of patriotism and what that means to different people, ego and sacrifice, and of course, how do you tell your children mommy isn't coming home? Cusack did an absolutely brilliant job portraying this tense, hunched man and allowing the audience to see him grow a little bit in self-awareness throughout the film. There is no hugely dramatic moment when he screams, 'my whole life has been based on a misconception!', but it's also hard to imagine that he hasn't begun to move away from his old belief system. It's not hard to portray someone who is coming unglued loudly, it is hard to create a subtle character and touch the audience with his pain and self. I thought Cusack's decision to physically play the character as he did, was really interesting. Cusack is a big man and his character is meant to be ex-military himself, so it would be obvious to play him fairly macho and strident. Instead, Cusack plays him as this gawky, physically 'small' and fumbling man with a soft (though firm) voice and manner. Really interesting.