Grace Is Gone--A Film Review

                                                                                         

In this unforgettabel film, John Cusack plays the
part of a suburban dad[Stanley] with two young
daughters and a wife in the military. He is one
of the few people in his surroundings that supports
the war in Iraq, but because he has bad eyes, he
is unable to serve. One day he receives a visit
from two Army officers who have come to inform
him of his wife's death in the war. He doesn't
even invite them in because he's reluctant to
accept the news of his wife's death.Even thought
war is hell, the fact that a women dies in it
somehow makes it even more terrible.Most war-on
-terror films usually deal with the consequences
on a family of a man's death.

[This is a debut film from writer-director James
C.Stone.]

Their girls are Heidi (Shelan O'Keefe), 12 years old,
and Dawn (Gracie Bednarczyk), who is 8. He sits them
down in the living room to break the news and finds
that he simply cannot. Instead, in a weird evasion,
he improvises on the spur of the moment and announces
they will get in the car and drive to Enchanted Gardens,
a Florida theme park they like. Heidi, who is very
intelligent, thinks this sounds a little strange.
He's pulling them out of school to go on an unannounced
holiday? Dawn just seems happy and doesn't ask any
questions.

Along the way, stopping in all places American cheesecake
chain hotels and restaurants, discount shopping emporiums.
Stanley finds himself constantly breaking his own rules.
He buys the girls things they don't need and allows them
to stay up late watching TV; because they no longer have
a mother, it is Stanley who now helps them pick out
dresses and lets them get their ears pierced even though
their mother had insisted they wait until they were older.

Stanley even stops off at his mother's house where his
brother[Allessandro Nivola] takes him to task for not
telling his daughters about the death of their mother.

"Grace Is Gone" gushes with emotion but little else,
but the feelings are authentic and not overly dramatized.
The effects of war are presented at their most basic,
bringing home the anguish of family loss with terrible,
unbearable rawness.

This earnest film received the Audience Award for Best
Drama. The conclusion of this film is inevitable, but the
performance by John Cusack shows us another side of this
talented actor.It's a stirring restrained performance as
a husband in denial over the death of his wife in Iraq.

About the author:
Andrew Conway is an avid author,writer and a
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