John Cusack plays, Stanley Philipps, a father of two girls Heidi (Shélan O'Keefe) and Dawn (Gracie Bednarczyk), whose wife, Grace, is serving in Iraq. Stanley is a store manager who is doing as well as he can to deal with being the parent of a 12 and 8 year old, he even attends a support group for the "wives" of service members - he is the only man present.
When he gets the dreaded knock on the door, that Grace has been killed in action, he cannot bring himself to tell the girls or face his own grief. So he takes them on an impromptu road trip from Minnesota to "Enchanted Gardens" in Florida.
They stop at his mother's house to find that his anti-war, lay about brother Jim (Alessandro Nivola ) is the only one home. When Jim receives a call about Grace they hit the road again rather than Stanley telling the girls and letting himself face his grief.
Cusack, at 40, is playing what is likely the most grown-up role of his career. He is convincing as the father who just wants to extend his girls' childhood a few more days. When he finally tells them the reaction of these two young actresses is very natural and real. I thought it was interesting that 12-year-old Heidi's crying sounded like an adult and 8-year-old Dawn's sounded like a small child. It reminded me of how much more grown-up my 12-year-old nephew seems than my 9-year-old niece.
This pro-military, anti-war (at least that's how I see it) movie is the first of this year's Sundance movies to make me cry.
A note on the perfume mentioned earlier. I know who you are and will be avoiding sitting within three rows or about five seats of you. Only the two rows between us filling up last night made your perfume bearable. If you read this and are putting on perfume it may or may not be about you, so please consider the people around you. Isn't the rule if you can smell it 3 feet away you're wearing too much?
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