I have seen this movie voted down for lack of comedic value. I would rate those users down for offering up an opinion on a movie for which they failed to read the advertised description.
This movie has substance. It was well-written, well-directed and well-produced. It was a very worthwhile use of my time. Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes heartwarming, sometimes funny... but always very real. I never heard of this movie before I saw the trailer tacked to some video on youtube. It deserves more press because it represents a common but often overlooked life experience. Well-meaning individuals who constantly struggle to avoid drowning in their own vices will find something encouraging in this movie. I liked that this movie was less formulaic and more realistic than most Hollywood fare. Will Farrell is a perfectly capable actor who doesn't seem the least bit constrained by typecasting. Everything Must Go
Will Ferrell just keeps getting better. I believe he's one of the best actors on the big screen these days. This film is also one of the best of the year, perhaps the decade. The filming itself is exquisite - subtle, pitch-perfect shots, some of them quite beautiful. The tone of the film is also subtle, subdued but very touching. The plot line is imaginative and unexpected; always surprising. And it's funny! I had two great hours watching this movie and highly recommend it to others. I'll see it again, and I rarely see films twice.
This is a very bold and very thoughtful movie. It's based on a Raymond Carver story, and you can see his trademark dialogue in the movie -- dialogue that is cutting and concise, ambivalent and ambiguous. I really don't know how this movie got made, but it's really well done and thought-provoking.
Will Ferrell plays an alcoholic salesman (is there any other kind of salesman?) who has three days to clear away his possessions, and start life anew. He's just been fired from his job, only to find that his wife has just left him, and locked him out of his house. In the face of adversity, he behaves very badly, and he makes an effort to clean up his life only to discover it's no longer possible.
The movie avoids many of the Hollywood artifices, and is a much truer realization of Carver's vision of the world than "Short Cuts" by Robert Altman.
Well made, good acting. If you liked Will Farrell in Stranger Than Fiction, then you may like this movie. The trailer might lead you to believe this movie is a comedy and itunes categorized it as a comedy but we found it to be a dark comedy...enjoyable but less heartwarming than expected.
The whole time you're watching the movie your thinking "this could be me". It makes you think about the facade that holds our lives together. Spoiler * the whole time you're watching the movie you keep waiting for that break to come and it never does. Life can be that way, I was entertained. I wanted to see him get his life back together. When he started to give away, the things that meant the most. You know he was at rock bottom. I think we are so use to the cliché of the good guy winning in the end. And everyone getting what they deserve in the end that - that made this movie hard to watch. I would have loved to see him kill the fish, punch the co-worker who fired him, and set the house on fire and get the girl. That would have been my ending. The beauty of the movie is not knowing. If he built another life or took a bullet to the head. In a way you get to have your own ending.
I loved this film. So many comedies appeal to slapstick, absurd situations and toilet humor, this movie is about finding humor in real life situations without fairy-tale endings and thus it is easy to relate to. I usually don't enjoy Ferrel as an actor, so I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised.
Although I have never seen a Will Ferrell movie where he was anything but funny this movie has me wishing it was not over, an emotional roller coaster. Made me laugh, cry, and kept me wondering what was going to happen next. Great job Will
I really enjoyed Stranger than Fiction and, since I had heard Will Ferrell's performance in that movie compared favorably to the one in Everything Must Go, was excited to see EMG. I walked away after seeing EMG a little unsure of whether I truly enjoyed the movie or just merely appreciated the quality of the director's vision and execution. Everything Must Go is the story of Nick Halsey (Ferrell), a struggling alcoholic who, in the first 10 minutes of the movie, has been laid of from his job and kicked out of his house by his wife, all within the same day. The rest of the movie looks at Halsey's attempt to manage the tension between wanting what he once had and trying to pursue a life that he desires, even though he isn't entirely sure of what that looks like. I will start by saying I thought the acting of everyone involved, especially Will Ferrell and Christopher Jordan Wallace, was superb and a highlight of the movie. I thought the music and visuals added significantly to the feel of the movie, especially how so much of the movie occurred in the front yard with the records of his father occasionally playing in the background. Now I knew to expect a story that was not a happy-go-lucky comedy (is there one about an alcoholic struggling with sobriety), but was hoping for some more lightheartedness. I did particularly enjoy watching the relationship between Nick Halsey and Wallace's "Kenny Loftus", and thought that the filmmakers did a good job pairing the two actors up. A couple of things with which I walked away: first, I found it interesting how the director decided to show Halsey's eventual growth in the way that he let go of certain things, and to whom he left them. Afterwards, a friend of mine and I discussed how difficult these acts would have been, but thought it appropriate for someone trying to move beyond such a serious issue as alcoholism. I also found it interesting that such a pivotal character, like Halsey's wife, has no screen time at all, save for her voice in one scene. It is as if the filmmakers want us to see how much damage one person has managed to do by simply stepping out of another's life. Overall, I do believe that the movie was well made, with an interesting story and fantastic acting, but the mood of the film was a little heavier than what I was looking for.
by scotty_cable (United States)'
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