All Good Things

Andrew Jarecki

The story: The film is inspired by the real-life case of Robert Durst, scion of a wealthy New York real estate family, who was suspected of murdering his wife but never tried for it. She disappeared in 1982 and was never found. He is renamed David Marks (Ryan Gosling) here and Kirsten Dunst plays the role of the wife Katie.

All good things must come to an end. After which, they fall apart in spectacular fashion.

The title refers to the name of a grocery store opened by David and Katie in the halcyon days after their marriage when they moved away to Vermont. They first met when David responded to a plumbing emergency at her New York apartment and the whirlwind romance that followed seemed to be a fairy tale one.

But David turns out to be weak-willed and is eventually bullied by his father into returning to Manhattan and taking up the family business. The relationship really begins to sour when Katie learns that he refuses to have children – after she gets pregnant. And slowly, he begins to reveal his darker side.

This could have been an episode for the procedural drama Cold Case or even a ho-hum television movie-of-the-week. What lifts it a notch above the ordinary are the performances.

Kirsten Dunst, now perhaps best known for playing Mary Jane in them Spider-Man blockbusters, is equally believable as a carefree young woman and a deeply unhappy wife who says to her husband: “I’ve never been closer to anyone and I don’t know you at all.”

Ryan Gosling, so good as a drug-addled teacher in Half Nelson (2006), once again disappears into his role as he goes from meek to volatile to psychotic, though in this case, David feels a little under-written.

All Good Things hence works better as a character study and period piece and not so much a thriller given the heavy- handed use of musical cues.

Director Andrew Jarecki had previously made a documentary, the well-received Capturing The Friedmans (2003), about a father and son accused of child sexual abuse.

He is no stranger to sensationalistic material and handled the outlandish turn All Good Things takes in the last 30 minutes in a fairly restrained and low-key manner.

Truth may be murky and justice elusive in real life – Robert Durst was never tried for the alleged murder of his wife – but in Jarecki’s celluloid version of events, there will be little doubt in mind when the audience, or jury, passes judgment.

(ST)