You Can Count On Me poster & wallpaper

J. Smith-Cameron, Jon Tenney, Ken Lonergan

You Can Count On Me starts with a terrible car crash that instantly orphans a little boy and his older sister. At film's end, that boy, now a grown-up nomad and ne'er-do-well, takes off by Gr...( read more  read more... )eyhound after a brief reunion with his sister, who lives at permanent anchor in their unspoiled hometown. The sibling saga that unreels between wrenching collision and bittersweet separation celebrates the idiosyncratic ways wounded folk like Terry (Mark Ruffalo) and Sammy (Laura Linney) put one foot in front of the other, both energized and hamstrung by the knowledge that nothing is ever certain in the road-movie of life. During his visit, Terry roils Sammy's becalmed existence, mostly by "fathering"--for good and ill--her overprotected 8-year-old (Rory Culkin), sneaking him out to play empowering bar pool, later introducing him to the weaselly dad he's fantasized into a superhero. Sammy starts a torrid affair with her married boss at the bank (Matthew Broderick gives delicious bureaucratic smarm), and considers marrying her sometime suitor (Jon Tenney), sweetly dull yet dependable. The narrative peaks here are human-sized, elevated by gentle humor and clear-eyed faith in the existential importance of these intersecting small-town lives. Linney is simply superb as Sammy, wild girl gone good, involuntarily "mothering" every man in her life. An authentic original, newcomer Ruffalo gives his modern-day Huck Finn a drawling, James Dean delivery tuned somewhere between a screwup's whine and the twang of pothead wisdom. (Hard to think of another recent film that so deftly nails down the rich dynamics of everyday conversation--the starts and stops, circumlocutions, clichés, sudden veers into revelation and eloquence.) This is that rarity, an action movie of the heart: no explosions or epiphanies, yet everything evolves through the catalysts of character and experience. --Kathleen Murphy

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88% liked it

2,370 ratings

Critics

95% liked it

94 critics

R, 110 min.

Directed by: J. Smith-Cameron, Jon Tenney, Ken Lonergan, Laura Linney, Mark Ruffalo, Matthew Broderick, Rory Culkin

Release Date: November 10, 2000

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DVD Release Date: June 26, 2001

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Stats: 538 reviews

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Laura Linney as Samantha 'Sammy' Prescott in You Can Count on Me (2000) Kenneth Lonergan Director for You Can Count on Me (2000) Laura Linney as Samantha 'Sammy' Prescott in You Can Count on Me (2000) Mark Ruffalo as Terry Prescott with Rory Culkin as Rudy Prescott in You Can Count On Me [2000] Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo Laura Linney as Samantha 'Sammy' Prescott with Mark Ruffalo as Terry Prescott in You Can Count On Me [2000] Mark Ruffalo as Terry Prescott with Laura Linney as Samantha 'Sammy' Prescott in You Can Count on Me (2000) Jon Tenney as Bob Steegerson with Laura Linney as Samantha 'Sammy' Prescott in You Can Count on Me (2000) Laura Linney as Samantha 'Sammy' Prescott with Mark Ruffalo as Terry Prescott in You Can Count On Me [2000] You Can Count On Me [2000] Mark Ruffalo as Terry Prescott with Rory Culkin as Rudy Prescott in You Can Count On Me [2000] Matthew Broderick as Brian Everett with Laura Linney as Samantha 'Sammy' Prescott in You Can Count on Me (2000) Rory Culkin as Rudy Prescott in You Can Count On Me [2000] You Can Count On Me [2000] Rory Culkin as Rudy Prescott with Mark Ruffalo as Terry Prescott in You Can Count On Me [2000] Laura Linney You Can Count On Me [2000] Mark Ruffalo as Terry Prescott with Laura Linney as Samantha 'Sammy' Prescott in You Can Count on Me (2000)
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Flixster Reviews (538)

  • SirPant
    September 21, 2009
    SirPant
    A sweet, gentle and subtly powerful little indie. I like it a lot, it?s a shame it flew right under the radar!
  • her69eyes
    May 11, 2008
    her69eyes
    I was a bit disappointed in this one.

    The script was very good, and Ruffalo and Linney both had absolutely wonderful performances. They had great chemistry together and because of that the movie flowed very well and it was believable. I'm a big fan of both of them and haven't ev...( read more)er seen them be anything short of stellar. Very good performances by Rory Culkin and Matthew Broderick, as well.

    However, I must say, I never found this to be particularly engaging.

    The film is composed of your standard building blocks of this genre - bum brother/responsible sister, love/hate office relationships, single mother under lots of stress, etc. The characters themselves are all cliches and in that way seem a bit stale when we first meet them. While this doesn't necessarily make it a bad film by any means (cliches are cliche for a reason... they always work), I found myself bored and underwhelmed by everything that was happening.

    Although the script itself does have plenty of twists and turns that give it a complete sense of unpredictability, it still was hard for me to be anything past mildly interested. It all just seemed a bit dull.

    I didn't like that there was absolutely no resolution or redemption of the characters by the end of the film. I understand that the film isn't about necessarily solving things, but more about coping and dealing with things... however, by the end of the film the characters had barely changed. Real life is like this, I know, but I didn't think it completely worked in this film. It seemed inconclusive. Yeah, it'd be too sentimental if everyone got their act together and their lives completely turned around, but I think Lonergan could have offered SOMETHING that wraps up the film. It just ends.

    I'm not normally picky about these things, but there was a lot of horrible issues with sound mixing and editing. Awkward cuts here and there, and at several times extremely large jumps in audio levels. Really takes you out of everything and comes off as "minor league" (admittedly that's the only thing in the movie that feels that way).

    I can't I disliked this, nor can I say I liked it... it simply existed. I'll forget it at all within a few months. If you have time and are interested, I wouldn't detract you from checking it out... but, it's certainly nothing i'd ever recommend.
  • crackingdanio
    March 23, 2008
    crackingdanio
    beautifully written and acted
  • YLOWBSTARDreturns
    February 9, 2008
    YLOWBSTARDreturns
    Funny, witty, and real.
  • ceWEBrity
    November 14, 2007
    ceWEBrity
    This is what movies should strive to be, especially American ones: authentic. Watching You Can Count On Me was the first time in a long while that I forgot I was watching a movie and simply let it wash over me, taking in the characters and the situations. This movie feels just li...( read more)ke real life - it's a shame if that doesn't register as high praise for you, but for something to so effortlessly encapsulate the ups and downs and triumphs and failures that we feel as humans really meant a lot to me.

    Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo are perfect in this beautiful offering to cinema.
  • JaneDoeNili
    September 8, 2009
    JaneDoeNili
    Very good, slow but solid. Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo make a very good couple as siblings. Realistic and soft.
  • yasendi
    July 7, 2009
    yasendi
    It let you live the life of a sister and her family, brother and son. It does that very welll in a way that let you feel you are really with them. Very realastic movie with great acting, cinemogrophy and story. It has no clear Plot, but lovely.
  • seriousqt
    June 19, 2009
    seriousqt
    If Lifetime made an honest movie about orphaned sibling relationships that had some actual heart to it. I gave it an extra half star for Truthful storytelling.
  • yeswecancan
    February 11, 2009
    yeswecancan
    Sundance 00' Grand Jury Prize
  • bbliumis
    February 9, 2009
    bbliumis
    A GREAT SENSITIVE FILM.

    MUST SEE.

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Critic Reviews

January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

The characters in You Can Count on Me have been freed from the formulas of fiction and set loose to live lives where they screw up, learn from their mistakes and bumble hopefully into the future. full review

View more You Can Count On Me reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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