All Good Things

Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst in All Good Things

Andrew Jarecki's All Good Things, from 2010, misuses the considerable talents of Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst in a mystery scant of suspense and surprise. Chiefly a documentarian, Jarecki is able to evoke local flavor in New York, but cannot flesh out his main characters. The script makes out Dunst's character to be a one dimensional dupe, so in love with troubled rich kid Gosling that she doesn't see the flashing warning signs. Away from the clutches of a Manhattan real estate magnate Dad (Frank Langella), Gosling and his lady love enjoy an idyll selling organic produce in Vermont, but Daddy coaxes him back to wicked Gotham. Haunted by the suicide of his mother when he was seven, the Goose goes bonkers and, off screen, dispatches his increasingly beset upon missus. 

Dunst's character is an unbelievably virtuous victim. The film perk up a bit after she dies; despite Ms. Dunst's skill. Philip Baker Hall and Lily Rabe are superb as the Goose's only allies once he loses his marbles. Diana Venora etches sharply a cutthroat attorney. However, Gosling is at sea in his portrayal. An actor of charm and assurance, he lacks the ability to register neuroticism and does not attempt to mimic the speech or posture of New York Jewish power broker. Gosling seems as Jewish as Canadian bacon. This would not be fatal in a moody thriller that gets inside its characters' heads, but Jarecki strives to present his characters objectively. 

The film is based on a real life case and the scenario sems shoehorned to reflect the facts, The drug use of Gosling and Dunst's characters may mirror the actual events, but seems extraneous to the film's thematic content. Jarecki seems to want to expose the ability of the rich to escape the reach of  the judiciary, but even that timely theme makes little impact during the course of this muffed project. Jarecki pursued the actual events of this film in his documentary, The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, supposedly to greater effect. Perhaps Mr. Jarecki's true métier is the documentary form, but All Good Things, despite my catty qualms, is a half decent first feature. (9/1/16)