The feature-film debut of writer-director Dan Harris is a coping-with-suicide comedy, or dramedy at the very most, and lukewarm either way, about the aftershocks of an Olympic hopeful's abrupt exit. Those left behind include Emile Hirsch, a sort of cross between Leo DiCaprio and Clea DuVall, as the unathletic younger brother who discovers the body ("That kind of thing can fuck you up for life," remarks one of his contemporaries); Jeff Daniels as the withdrawn and bordering-on-catatonic father; Sigourney Weaver as the neglected wife and mother who harbors an unspoken grudge against her next-door neighbor, and revives a long-ago interest in pot; and, hardly worth mentioning, Michelle Williams as the older sister who has already left home. Weaver, commanding a broad spectrum of light and shade, is always worth watching. She brings the full Voice of Experience to her topper of her teenager's lament, "People are so stupid I can't bear to live around them anymore." Weaver: "And it only gets worse." And her reaction to her husband's offer of cosmetic surgery for her birthday present is priceless, even if the actress, to be frank, looks as though she can no longer afford to be sniffy on that subject. Viewers these days are required to suspend their disbelief at least above eye-level. (2005) — Duncan Shepherd
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