Gus Van Sant (Milk) directs fellow Academy Award nominees Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street) and Rooney Mara (Carol) in this uplifting biopic on Portlandian artist John Callahan.
"John Callahan has a lust for life, a knack for off-colour jokes, and a drinking problem. When an all-night bender ends in a catastrophic car accident, John wakes up to the reality of being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. In his journey back from rock bottom, his honesty and wicked sense of humour turn out to be his saving grace, as he makes friends with an oddball AA group, finds that love is not beyond his reach, and develops a talent for drawing irreverent and sometimes shocking cartoons." (Sundance Film Festival)
The crowning achievement of director Gus Van Sant’s biopic of the late American cartoonist and wheelchair user John Callahan, based on his memoir of the same name, is the nuanced exploration of a tough theme: the difference between forgiving yourself and not feeling sorry for yourself.
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Charting the late John Callahan’s rocky road from alcoholism, through the car crash that left him a quadriplegic, to taking the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and gaining notoriety for his frank and darkly humorous cartoons, director Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting and Milk) employs a no-frills, naturalistic style, in a warts and all, decidedly unheroic portrait of a man battling his demons on the way to recovery.
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Phoenix tends to get lost in his parts, which can lead him (along with his films) astray. But when his high-wire emotional arc suits the movie, there are few who can touch him.
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Hill is good, finding a sincere wavelength for his role which doesn't push Donnie at us too mockingly: he's this film's equivalent of Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting.
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Van Sant pays tribute to the restorative power of faith, discipline and perseverance, but he also resists the temptation to follow these themes into an overly pat or complacent groove.
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This unwieldy but consistently enjoyable portrait of paraplegic local hero John Callahan is notable for its generosity of spirit and gentleness.
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Despite strong performances from Phoenix and Hill, Don't Worry can't out run its deluge of clichés.
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