Rating: 4 out of 5 stars!
Genre: family, comedy
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
‘The Upside of Anger’ is a story that focuses on the angst and all the pent-up anger of a woman who believes that her husband had abandoned her and their four children and left with his secretary, with whom he’d been having an affair. The story revolves around her messed-up life, and her drinking problem, together with the conflicts between Terri and her four girls. And if that’s not messy enough, her neighbour decides to pop in for a visit, ends up being her drinking partner and they even start cohabiting…
Despite the tension in the movie (and mind you, there IS a lot of it…), there’re snippets of sudden humour as well… such as during the graduation ceremony of Hadley (if tt’s how it’s spelt), Hadley announces, ‘Well, mum, I have something to tell you and it might come as a surprise… so… ‘ Before she could continue, the youngest, their 15 year-old sister blurts out, ‘You’re pregnant and you’re getting married!’, which turned out to be really the case! (ok, so it might not sound very funny here but it WAS funny in the movie!)
Then there’s another funnier one… the family’s having soup at dinner… and this man (he’s a coarse, ugly, fat old man) who has been sleeping with Terri’s teenage daughter, makes a hell lot of noise slurping his soup. (it’s really irritating and disgusting)… The camera pans in on Terri’s face… and you got to give her credit for being able to make her irritated look even so… then suddenly, there’s this explosion and ewwww… tt disgusting guy’s head had exploded (if looks could kill… heheh) and the blood had just splattered over the kitchen corner and all the diners… at one point, I thought it looked like the fiery flava sauce at KFC…
Then, there comes the twist in the film! One day, while extending the compound, the developers discover the body of Terri’s ex-husband… and the truth comes to light… he had not eloped with his secretary, he’d fallen into the well and simply not been found by anyone for YEARS (at least 3)… and all that anger was for naught…
Finally, the lesson of the movie… nicely summarised by ‘only a 15-yr-old’…
“Anger and resentment can stop you in your tracks, that’s what I know. It needs nothing to burn but the air and the life, that it sputters and smothers… It’s real though the fury, even when it’s not; it can change you, turn you, mould you and shape you into someone not. The only upside to anger then, the person you become. Hopefully that someone that wakes up one day, and realises that he’s not afraid of his journey, someone that knowns that the truth is the best partially told story, that anger like growth, comes in spurts and fits, and in its wake lays a new chance of acceptance, and the promise of calm.”
