When we think of Robert De Niro as a father, we can be forgiven for conjuring up the humorless dude from “Meet the Parents” and its sequel — assuming we’re not conjuring up a gangster with a baseball bat.
So it must count as an interesting casting decision that De Niro plays a father trying to reconnect with his children in “Everybody’s Fine.” This is a Hollywood remake of a 1990 Italian film by “Cinema Paradiso” director Giuseppe Tornatore.
He’s never been a cuddly actor, but then De Niro’s character here is no teddy bear. Recently widowed, Frank Goode is disappointed when his grown children cancel out on plans to visit him for a weekend. So he hits the road, traveling about the country in an attempt to discover why his kids don’t seem to relate to him the way they did to their mother.
The kids are played by Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell and Drew Barrymore; there’s another brother who seems to have recently vanished, a secret the siblings are trying to keep hidden from Dad.
The movie, in a way, is about the keeping of secrets within families: the way family members shield others from certain complicated truths, a well-intentioned but mostly misguided tradition.
There’s been a lot of that in the Goode family and (no surprises here) Frank is going to have to try to learn a new way of being with his kids … one at a time.
I wish I could report that this process is fresh or engaging, but no can do. The film is very tasteful and director Kirk Jones (“Waking Ned Devine”) has some sense of how to frame the action — but there’s not much juice to it.
De Niro turns in a good, disciplined performance. So often in frequent years he’s had a tendency to coast but maybe the novelty of playing a basically decent but out-of-touch father stirred something in him. He doesn’t generate a great deal of warmth, which is consistent with Frank’s character.
The film around him is cool and measured, keying off his personality. Only Drew Barrymore, with her sunnyside-up personality, loosens it up a little.
Festive it ain’t, even if the ad campaign suggests a holiday treat. This is more like a Christmas party with a lot of soul-searching and one veteran actor working hard.
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