'All Good Things' review
As if seeing Ryan Gosling and Frank Langella in a movie together didn’t alert you that something bad was going to happen, the opening credit sequence of All Good Things sure would. We see flashes of dark water, empty streets, and a woman alone in a car on a dark, covered bridge. The images have an odd narration to go with them – it seems Gosling’s character, David Marks, is being interrogated in his old age.
Two minutes in and you already have to stop and think: What the hell is going on? Over the course of the film, you start to ask what will happen next. Surely, this a sign of a decent thriller.
The story is told over the course of 40 years, from 1971 to 2008. In 1971, David meets Katie (Kirsten Dunst) and takes her to a ritzy dinner party – hosted by a quietly intimidating Frank Langella, as Gosling’s father. It seems that the rich boy and the spunky girl (naturally from the wrong side of the tracks) are bound to fall madly in love, which they do, despite his father’s disapproval. Naturally.
But this movie is based on a true story, so rom-com conventions are setting us up for a big let-down.
David’s world is pristine, white and preppy. There’s hardly any life, except for David and his father playing tennis on lush, green estates. Katie’s world is filled with family, with relatives packed at the dinner-table. With Katie, there’s color – but after the couple’s wedding, we see life getting a little bleaker when David’s father begins to intrude in their lives (and their country-store called “All Good Things”).
To satisfy his father and keep him at bay, David goes back to work in the family business – New York real estate, perhaps with some illegal activity on the side. Things seem to be turning around for the pair, as evidenced by a love scene on the floor of their new home, but the score lets us know not all is well. Gosling and Dunst have great chemistry, completely believable as lovers that find their relationship falling apart as David becomes more and more unhinged. David becomes more controlling and violent, and you can see Kathie slowly shut down.
Eventually, she forges more independence and distances herself from her husband. Then she disappears. Did she run away or was she murdered? The last third of the film begins to answer some questions, which I don’t want to spoil, but seeing as the true story this was based on was never solved – you can fill in some of the blanks.
This is a well-crafted thriller, which has me excited to see star Kirsten Dunst tackle the genre again in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia. As far as I'm concerned, her acting hasn’t been this on-point since The Virgin Suicides. Gosling is proving himself again to be a formidable actor. For that alone, All Good Things is worth a watch – if you don’t mind feeling anxious for an hour and forty minutes.