Everything Must Go

Everything Must Go is about, well, letting go and moving on. Often our lives begin us down a path and keep us on that path, whether we like or not, whether it is productive or not. Nick’s life was good. He had all the trappings of success, with a wife, a good job and a beautiful house in the suburbs. While his life might look like it is squarely on track, he keeps derailing it with a major drinking problem. This pot of rancid water finally comes to a boil when he has yet another relapse, leading to him losing his wife, losing his job, potentially committing adultery and being locked out of his own house, all in the course of a couple days. Now, his accounts are all frozen, he has no money, all his belongings are sitting on his lawn and he feels like he has nowhere to go. So, what does he do? Drink himself into oblivion? Sit on his lawn until his wife comes back and attempt to get yet another second chance? Or does he move on and put his life on a new path?

While Everything Must Go is a hopeful and enjoyable movie, it lacks a certain amount of dramatic punch with its overreliance on formula. In other words, it’s not a bad movie, but I don’t think a single scene had anything all that surprising in it. You can predict every twist and turn. I’m a big believer that life is what you make of what is given you, and I like that this movie shares that sentiment. What truly keeps this flick out of made-for-tv territory is Will Ferrell’s performance. He is just great. His Nick is well formed, natural and capable of gently keeping the movie from being a major downer. Based on the subject matter, in fact, you would think this would be the most depressing movie of the year, but it’s not at all and that is largely due to Ferrell. He makes a mediocre movie very very watchable. In short, it’s not the best thing around, but it’s a sweet story with a good message and Ferrell knocks it out of the park.

SA