Nearing Grace (2005)

45% of critics liked it
(22 reviews)
36% of users liked it
(15,916 ratings)

A teenage boy tries to hold his family together while the girl of his dreams drives him to distraction in this coming-of-age comedy drama. It's 1978, and Henry Nearing (Gregory Smith) and his family are in a state of flux. Henry's mother has died, and now his father, Shep (David Morse), is trying to… More A teenage boy tries to hold his family together while the girl of his dreams drives him to distraction in this coming-of-age comedy drama. It's 1978, and Henry Nearing (Gregory Smith) and his family are in a state of flux. Henry's mother has died, and now his father, Shep (David Morse), is trying to find himself by quitting his job, buying a motorcycle, and growing out his hair. Henry's brother, Blair (David Moscow), is similarly trying to expand his boundaries by dating a free-spirited girl and experimenting with drugs. Henry, meanwhile, is just trying to get through high school, but a certain girl is making that difficult for him. Grace Chance (Jordana Brewster) is a pretty girl in Henry's class who enjoys wrapping boys around her little finger; it doesn't take long for her to notice he's smitten with her, and she begins flirting with him and getting him to do whatever she wants, even though she already has a boyfriend whom she has no intention of leaving. Meanwhile, Merna (Ashley Johnson), a cute girl who lives nearby, has a crush on Henry and is clearly a better match for him, but she can't get him to notice her, even after she starts dating an older boy to make him jealous. Nearing Grace received its world premiere at the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 45 min.
Directed By: Rick Rosenthal
Genres: Drama, Comedy

In Theaters: Jun 18, 2005 Wide
On DVD: Oct 23, 2007
Studio: Whitewater Films

Critic Reviews

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger
The story here is as dog-eared as an old beach book, and about as deep.
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
The performances by Smith, Brewster and veteran David Morse, as a morbidly depressed widower, elevate Nearing Grace to something near grace.
Luke Y. Thompson, Village Voice
...cinematic youth has rarely seemed so convincingly uncertain, and Brewster could definitely drive a young guy crazy.
Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times
Smart, funny and, thanks in no small part to David Geddes' cinematography, it occasionally approaches the poetic.
Laura Kern, New York Times
Bursting with hormones, angst, humor and heartbreak, Rick Rosenthal's Nearing Grace, set during the late 1970's in suburban New Jersey, follows a teenager's efforts to survive both the recent loss of his mother and his senior year of high school.
Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune
The characters are stereotypes, their situations are familiar and the outcome is predictable. But the whole thing is viewed from such a feel-good perspective that we're willing to overlook much of that.
Mike McGranaghan, Aisle Seat
It feels like perhaps the screenplay was intensely personal and/or autobiographical, yet it's suspiciously lacking in any dramatic tension.
Wade Major, Boxoffice Magazine
It's so exceptionally well done, so exceedingly well-cast that it makes one realize how few such films actually succeed at all.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice
A fine coming-of-age drama about a sexually eager young man who discovers that anything is possible with a friend who is loving and trustworthy after years of giving and forgiving.
Maitland McDonagh, TV Guide's Movie Guide
The story is small, but their performances give it depth and weight.
Ted Fry, Seattle Times
Moral dilemmas faced by immature teens is fine fare for young-adult fiction, but a movie that wants them to be taken as something bigger needs better management than Nearing Grace can provide.
Pam Grady, Reel.com
It's also refreshingly low-key and more intelligent than 90% of the movies aimed at the teen crowd. That by itself is a fine achievement.
Marc Mohan, Oregonian
[It] makes you feel like a heel for not liking it: Independently made and heartfelt, it also happens to have been shot in Portland. Nonetheless, the accumulation of cliches big and small manage to erase whatever goodwill its other features have engendered
Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
The tone is psychological realism, as opposed to, say, American Pie-style burlesque. But the main emphasis is on sex and drugs anyway. In any case, it's not very illuminating.
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press
Nearing Grace means to be a gritty look at what it was like to come of age in the late '70s, but its reality is hampered by the unreal pretentiousness of every word the characters utter.
Bill White, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The dialogue is full of fortune cookie aphorisms and stilted literary phrases that were never meant to be spoken aloud.
Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly
If we've seen it all before, Nearing Grace's mix of nostalgia and contempt for the follies of youth is a potent one.
Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
Sucks to be Nearing Grace on the same week that Zerophilia also opens.

Read all 18 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Cynthia S

It's easy to call a film cliche, but if that film represents a vision that the filmmaker has always wanted to realize, it's not really fair to dismiss the movie just because someone else got there first. Family dramas often feel the most cliche, because we all live in them… More
It's easy to call a film cliche, but if that film represents a vision that the filmmaker has always wanted to realize, it's not really fair to dismiss the movie just because someone else got there first. Family dramas often feel the most cliche, because we all live in them everyday. I don't deny that some parts of the film are predictable, but many more are strikingly original and honest - and those are the ones that you'll remember. All of the performances are quite excellent.
Alice S

A Some Kind of Wonderful-esque love triangle that doesn't quite resolve as cleanly as you'd expect. Gregory Smith was adorable in Harriet the Spy way back when, but now, he exhibits the puckish naturalism of a young Jean-Pierre Leaud,… More
A Some Kind of Wonderful-esque love triangle that doesn't quite resolve as cleanly as you'd expect. Gregory Smith was adorable in Harriet the Spy way back when, but now, he exhibits the puckish naturalism of a young Jean-Pierre Leaud, the smoldering looks of James McAvoy, and the dead-eyed complexity of a hit-not-miss Daniel Radcliffe. The movie is sexy, life-affirming, philosophical, wry - a little bit too ambitious for that matter - but nevertheless, a bittersweet bildungsroman.
Leigh R

Very well done.
Tom E

One of the funniest British comedies I've ever seen
Chosen 7

Interesting drama. The best friends [a guy and a girl] secretly in love storyline is old, very predictable but still interesting to watch. Good performances by David Morse and Gregory Smith. Jordan Brewster was good as well, she should get more roles.