The handsome sheriff (Lucas) promises to be on the lookout for Gary the abuser, who indeed does show up. She goes into town and gets a waitress job from Nina (Manheim).Įveryone in town remembers Jean, remembers the wreck that killed her husband. He didn’t even know he had a grandchild who looks just like her dad. She was driving when they had a wreck that killed his son. The first thing he says when he sees the two of them walking up is, “I don’t want you here.”Įinar and his ranch hand of many years Mitch (Freeman) are living out their days with one milk cow, one horse, a pickup truck that runs only sometimes, and the need to care daily for Mitch who was mauled by a bear about a year ago.Įinar blames Jean for the death of his son. Out of desperation, Jean takes her daughter to her father-in-law Einar’s (Redford) tumbledown wreck of a ranch in Wyoming. They abandoned the car and everything in it except what they could stuff in plastic bags. The car broke down in the middle of nowhere. Apparently the promise was to leave Gary, because mother and daughter packed their belongings and drove off in a clunker of a car. When he beats up Jean yet again, Griff reminds her mother that the last time it happened she promised. The basic plot: Jean Gilkyson (Lopez) and her 8 year old daughter Griff (Gardner) live with Gary, an abusive boyfriend (Lewis). The different characters experience grief in their own ways, cling to it in their own ways, and ultimately work through it in their own ways. The film also features Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman, Josh Lucas, Damian Lewis, Camryn Manheim, and young Becca Gardner. Jennifer Lopez isn’t the only attraction. When I saw it on Netflix, I thought Why not give it another try? It’s crazy hard to find anything with a good lead female character on Netflix, and here was An Unfinished Life with Jennifer Lopez just waiting.

Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.I watched 2005’s An Unfinished Life years ago and remember liking it. Screenplay Mark Spragg and Virginia Korus Spragg. Producers Leslie Holleran, Kelliann Ladd, Alan Ladd Jr. Times guidelines: Wife beating, sexual references and other adult material MPAA rating: PG-13 for some violence, including domestic abuse, and language When the bear isn’t on screen, “An Unfinished Life” makes do with sentimental musings like “Do you think the dead really care about our lives?” If that includes watching pictures like this, the answer is probably no. Still, if you compare his scenes with Freeman with what Freeman did with Clint Eastwood in a similar relationship in “Million Dollar Baby,” you end up respecting what Eastwood and screenwriter Paul Haggis accomplished more. While Lopez, Freeman and Lucas do solid work, it is Redford who seems to be having the most fun playing the crankiest geezer in town.

It’s not that the action is that badly done, it’s that it’s so obvious. Griff and her grandfather will get close, psycho Gary will show up out of nowhere and that pesky bear will serve some dread metaphorical purpose. If you’ve ever seen a movie, you know what’s going to happen. Einar, who holds Jean responsible for his son’s death, does not exactly greet her with open arms, but local sheriff Crane Curtis (Josh Lucas) is more receptive. Ensnared in an abusive relationship with soft-spoken psycho Gary (Damian Lewis), Jean returns to Ishawooa for the first time in more than a decade. Halfway across the country, Einar’s widowed daughter-in-law, Jean (Lopez), and Griff, the 11-year-old granddaughter he doesn’t know he has (a charming Becca Gardner) are having problems of their own. Up on a hill above the ranch house is the grave of Einar’s died-too-young son, with a gravestone inscribed “An Unfinished Life.” It starts with cantankerous rancher Einar Gilkyson (Redford), living outside Ishawooa, Wyo., with former hired hand Mitch Bradley (Freeman), now disabled because of an attack by that wandering bear. The film’s story is not a complicated one. Which is not surprising given that director Hallstrom, whose previous films include “The Shipping News,” “Chocolat” and “The Cider House Rules,” is a known wallower in emotion. The leanly written novel was widely praised for its unsentimental nature when it was published last year, but that quality is nowhere to be found in the film.

Movie review an unfinished life