Everything Must Go (2011)

'Everything Must Go' is a dramatization of a Raymond Carver short story 'Why Don't You Dance?', with Will Ferrell playing the central character. Two things about that. I like a movie that only tries to cover the material in a short work of fiction. Short stories have to make their mark in a limited number of pages and so the action is swift and the message is straightforward. Second, Raymond Carver, while not a man I would wanted to even share a meal with, judging from his biography, is a singularly gifted short story writer. Robert Altman's 'Short Cuts', also based on Carver's short stories, is a masterpiece. And finally, Will Ferrell is a gifted dramatic actor--while I rarely find him even palatable as a comic actor, his serious roles have yet to fail to intrigue and entertain me.
Ferrell plays Nick Halsey, a man who drinks his way out of a job and a marriage, all on the same day. He isn't one of those flamboyant drunks, nor is he a happy drunk, or a charming drunk. He is a guy whose drinking has become the priority in his life. A sad and very common story. Nick wouldn't say that drinking is more important than his wife, but because he pays more attention to that than anything else in his life, it becomes the king of his existence.
It isn't true that you need to find your bottom before you're likely to stop drinking but that is the case here. Every bottom is different. Nick finds his on the front lawn of his house. His wife has moved all his belongings out of their house, changed the locks, alarmed the house, emptied their bank account and cancelled his credit cards. He deals with this by buying some beer and settling into his La-Z-Boy recliner.
Into this situation comes the muse. In this case it is an African-American teenager named Kenny (Christopher Jordan Wallace), a nice kid who rides up on his bike, asks the obvious questions and enters into a tacit understanding to become Nick's business partner in the selling off of all his worldly goods. This character is very well handled. He quietly but precisely shines a light onto Nick's circumstnances in a way no other person in Nick's life can. His timing is right. He also allows for Nick to shine through as more than a drunk who can be a bit of an ass. Through their friendship, Nick is able to find a possible path to redemption. Thisis not a feel good movie, but it is packed with meaning, and the occasional laugh. My favorite is when Kenny says to Nick that black people don't play soccer and Nick's response is "What do you mean, black people don't play soccer? Whole continents of black people play soccer." Indeed they do. Nick helps Kenny and Kenny helps Nick. The story is not overplayed and it works.