Grace is Gone

*** Stars

The War in Iraq is one of the saddest in history. The U.S population is mostly against it, it's destroying our economy, and it's a monumental lie. With Grace is Gone, it purposely stays interpersonal to one family grieving for a causality suffered from war. What little understanding they do receive comes from a report filed by someone they don't know. With war, there are causalities, but at what cost?

Stanley Philipps is an every day American who just discovered that his wife has been killed in the line of duty in Iraq. With such shock and arrestment from reality, Stanley doesn't know how to tell his kids. So he takes them on a vacation. I don't agree with Stanley's decision to wait to tell his family, but I cannot begin to understand what he is going through. I guess it's something only someone like Stanley Philipps can decide.

Through their road trip, we learn about Stanley and his two daughters. Heidi and Dawn, aged twelve and eight, are like any other siblings. They fight, they yell, but they also love and care. Heidi inparticular has a real quality towards her. She is mature but also understands her age. Her being the older daughter gives her and Stanley's relationship a bit more structure. The strongest scenes include the two discovering who each other really are. Through this tragedy, Stanley opens his mind towards his daughters lives. Before Grace is Gone, he was certainly a caring father, but censorship was a strong tool in his parental game. Now in uncharted territory, Stanley Philipps has nothing but to make his family as happy as possible.

Cusack has a chance here to act his heart out. His two other films in 2007 were 1408 and Martian Child. He took those because they were solid offers, but he really wanted to sink his teeth into this one. It shows. And when we reach the climax where he must tell the kids the tragic news we know that Cusack is still a gifted and sensible actor.

If only the film could match his performance. It can drag pretty hard for only an 84-minute film, and some scenes simply don't make sense. When Stanley and the kids stop to see family, he sees his brother who has little purpose to the plot except to give us some anti-war lectures. He may be right in a sense, but it gives the film the wrong image. It's not pro-war or anti-war, but a simple tale of one man trying desperately to hold together what's left of his family.