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We Don't Live Here Anymore
Directed by John Curran
Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Laura Dern, Peter Krause, Naomi Watts
Script: Andre Dubus, Larry Gross
Running Time: 1:41
Country: USA
Year: 2004
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A long-delayed adaptation of a couple of short stories by Andre Dubus, We Don't Live Here Anymore plunges the audience into the heart of an emotional spiral that links two couples. Jack (Mark Ruffalo—In The Cut) & Terry (Laura Dern—Wild at Heart), a somewhat Bohemian-like couple, are friends with upper-class Hank (Peter Krause—Six Feet Under) and Edith (Naomi Watts—Mulholland Drive.) When the film opens, the four of them are enjoying a night of drunken fun, but as soon as their paths diverge—Jack & Edith head to the liquor store to buy some beer while Hank & Terry stay home—it becomes clear that there is more than the tie of friendship between them.
What happens here is the direct consequence of the chaotic relationship of each couple. While Jack is somewhat tired of his wife's lack of focus, Edith has become estranged to her womanizer of a husband. When the two extramarital entities meet, they are not looking for love but rather for a shelter of brief happiness, away from their cold and boring lives. As the film unfolds, we follow each character's emotional drift until the consequences of their actions ultimately catch up with them.
With its closed setting—the film evolves mostly around these 4 characters—, We Don't Live Here Anymore could just as well have been a play as the medium used—film—isn't fully exploited. This is what is usually called an actor's movie and the talented cast certainly keeps this picture alive from the beginning to the end—much will be said about Ruffalo's performance but Krause's charming underplayed approach and Dern's colorful style are as vibrant; only Watts seems underused here in the skin of a character that's too monochromatic for her own talent.
While the actors certainly know how to grip the spectator at the emotional level, the story, far from being innovative, advances on a predictable but safe line, until one pivotal but fatal moment. As Terry has summoned Jack to leave the house, the latter, alone with his kids above a river, seems for a couple of minutes to be ready to snap and the film suggests indirectly that the idea of pushing his kids into the river and killing himself might have crossed his mind. At the premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival, the question about this ambiguous scene came up and Ruffalo hinted that it might have indeed been an option for his character. The issue here is that Jack is too much of a nice and flawed character to really have that level of darkness deep inside him. As a result, this scripted ploy looks like an attempt at a cheap thrill that has no place here, in total contrast with the overall intimate tone of the picture.
But it's when the conclusion comes that we are suddenly confronted with the purpose of such a film, or rather its lack thereof. The honest but slightly dysfunctional middle-class couple gets back together while the rich one breaks apart, the cynical unfaithful womanizer finally gets his due when Edith leaves him. Did we really need another picture to know that infidelity is bad and can have bad consequences on the life of a couple? The answer is obviously no but this is the way the script wraps it up and it leaves most of us skeptical about this uninspired climax. When Hank asks Edith why she's leaving him now, she just answers "because I can", a line that is supposed to resonate with a deep echo in the mind of the audience, but instead sounds like a screenwriting void. "We don't live here anymore" says the title; indeed.
Fred Thom
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We Don't Live Here Anymore review
