Review of Every Thing Will Be Fine

It's kind of astounding that a movie with the kind of inciting incident that we see in Every Thing Will Be Fine can manage to do so little with it. That opening sequence is enough to make your stomach drop, and it is played perfectly by everyone involved. I loved how it set up the story of the film, and I was excited to see what might happen next. The sad reality is that not much of anything happens next. I know it's the lamest criticism I can make about a movie, and I generally hate saying it, but Every Thing WIll Be Fine is just boring. They needed to take the plot somewhere to show the ripple effects of that moment on the main character, but I got nothing from it. I don't know if it helps that they cast James Franco in the lead role, though, because his smarmy personality doesn't suit this kind of deep psychological character drama. I just did not care about anyone in the movie except the kid, and there is no satisfying resolution or growth for his character, so the movie didn't give me much to latch onto. Oh, and can I just mention how weird it is that they had Rachel McAdams use an accent in the film for no reason whatsoever. Every Thing Will Be Fine is just a hollow shell of a movie that needed something more to make it work. If only it could have lived up to the potential of that scene in the beginning.