Everything Must Go review

• 7th Oct 2011

Will Ferrell stars as Nick Halsey, a moderately successful salesman battling with alcoholism, a battle that he has no real desire to win. As we’re introduced to him he’s being fired, his wife has left him and all of his possession have been turfed out onto the front lawn.

The film charts just a few days in the life of Halsey. On the first day we see him suffer a series of predictable emasculations, the loss of his job, his wife, his car. He’s threatened by teenagers, borrows a child’s bike to get to the liquor store and is forced to sleep on his front lawn in the run up to the fabled American Saturday Morning Yard Sale. In the days following there are a series of small, miniscule wins, over sprinkler systems and kinky neighbours. These hint that he’s capable of taking control, but he falls short of turning his life around, which is the film’s strength; that we don’t see a clichéd dramatic awakening.

The running theme is that he’s created this situation for himself. In damaging his bosses car, he’s unable to return to work. In succumbing to alcohol, he’s unable to save his marriage. There’s a darker undertone as we learn that he’s been accused of a serious crime by a co-worker and he can’t even defend himself. There isn’t an opportunity to feel sorry for him, which is a good thing. Even in the scene where Halsey, still drinking, watches an old home movie of his inebriated father screaming into the camera, there’s the obvious metaphor of history repeating itself, but you still didn’t feel sufficiently sorry for him because he’s yet to take ownership of his own actions.

For the bulk of the film, Halsey’s character just reacts to everything around him and takes no responsibility for himself. In his own words, he’s just living day to day. Even the films premise, that he decides to hold a Yard Sale and let go of all his posessions, is false. The Yard Sale is the idea of his sponsor and is organised by a young neighbour, Kenny, played by Christopher Jordan Wallace. On the morning of, he seems more to resign himself to it. He only stops drinking because he’s run out of money. He only eats breakfast as its been cooked for him and he only sells because someone else has organised it and he desperately needs the money.

The supporting crew is made up primarily of women and children, perhaps pointedly referring to what he doesn’t have; a family. Laura Dern plays a high school friend he reconnects with in an effort to find someone who thought well of him at one time. When she repeats that he has a good heart, he reacts badly to it, unable to face that he was once a good guy, a trait he’s lost over the years. Rebecca Hall plays Samantha, a pregnant neighbour who tries to help him, only to be on the receiving end of his scorn, citing that her life with her own husband mirrors that of his own wife.

Will Ferrell’s second foray into a serious starring role falls short of Stranger than Fiction. The main reason for this is not in his performance, but in the story which is a little mundane. This isn’t a film about the devastating effects of alcoholism, we don’t go into the sickness of it and Halsey operates as a highly functioning drunk for most of the film. It’s a look at this one man, who eventually has to realise that despite being able to hold onto his job, his wife and his life as an alcoholic for a number of years, has finally lost everything.  Maybe that’s fine, after all we’re charting the progress of an alcoholic who is only beginning to realise that he’s responsible. The whole film is devoted to that one moment of realisation; we don’t get to see if he makes it or not.

The failings of the film are that it just doesn’t play on your emotions hard enough.  The moments that he hits rock bottom aren’t sad enough; scenes where he loses everything that anchors him to his life and identity aren’t poignant enough; and the realisation that he’s now responsible for making things right doesn’t build up to a crescendo like it should.

Ferrell plays Halsey as a man who is adept at masking his emotions, motivations and lies. But in failing to show how he really feels in private until the very last scenes, you’re left with a film that is watchable, but ultimately superficial. Considering the subject matter, I just wanted a more profound film.

Maliha Basak