In general I don't discuss movies, as I find that I am particularly bad at film analysis. However, the upcoming film Everything Must Go, which is based off of the Raymond Carver short story "Why Don't You Dance" has me pretty curious. Given the fact that I loved What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, I'm a little skeptical that a film adaptation will do the story justice.
According to the synopsis, the protagonist is a relapsed alcoholic who has lost his job and ruined his marriage as a result of his failure at sobriety. So, he moves everything inside of the house onto the lawn in hopes of selling all of it to obtain money to purchase more alcohol.
What is so jarring about this version of Carver's short is its emphasis on alcoholism being the primary culprit for all of the protagonist's woes. Carver left that detail out of the original story, and it's worth noting that alcohol appears in almost every story in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, but it doesn't figure so prominently as it does in Everything Must Go. To situate the film around alcoholism might be a more "modern" (21st Century, perhaps) reading of the story, but I'm disinclined to go that far. Truthfully, I'm worried that the man who wrote the screenplay isn't being that true to the original short, or he's glossing it poorly. It also completely excludes the most important part of the short, which is that fantastic moment when the young woman dances with the man who is selling all of his stuff. The dance is bizarrely intimate and moving, and it imbues the entire story with a romantic hue absent from the relationship between the young couple (and, for that matter, the majority of the couples throughout the entire collection of stories). What cinches the power of this story is the girl's retelling of her experience with the man selling off all of his possessions on his lawn. She treats it with humor shot through with insanity as she shows her friends the things she bought that day. She doesn't mention that they danced. In the memory she passes onto her friends, he was some crazy man. A meaningless encounter that resulted in the acquisition of a mattress and a record player.
The trailer suggests that the protagonist can be saved, which in turn implies that he wants to be saved, and or that he needs to be saved. What is it about a person who is selling their possessions off that suggests they have lost touch with reality? As I mentioned before, it's likely this is going to be turn back into an issue with alcohol.
Then again, I don't know. I do plan on seeing this movie, but I'm afraid of being outraged at the film adaptation of one of my favorite Carver stories. Maybe I should shut the hell up about it until I see it.
Also! I have no problem with the casting: A cursory perusal of internet posts about this movie reveal that many people are skeptical of Ferrell's ability to pull this roll of. He did alright in Stranger than Fiction so I don't doubt he'll adequately (perhaps even fantastically) portray this character. I think it will be another radical departure from what we know Ferrell for, and I'm interested to see which of his fans appreciate this work as opposed to his others. At any rate, not really worried about that. I'm willing to bet that even if this movie is as multivalenced as I sincerely hope that it is, Ferrell will still do a good job.
