 Film Reviews 
 
 Everybody's Fine -- Film Review 
 
 "Everybody's Fine" 
 
 Bottom Line: A thoroughly fake movie with trite characters that is about, of all things, the need for truthfulness. The contradiction counts as galumphing irony in this calculatedly soppy, seasonally phony Americanized remake of Giuseppe Tornatore's 1990 Stanno Tutti Bene  which was bittersweet in the Italian original with Marcello Mastroianni as the poignant papa. Indeed, the first son he visits, a painter in New York, has disappeared.So he drops in on one of his daughters (Kate Beckinsale), who lives with her husband and son in a tony Chicago neighborhood.
– Critics are divided on Everybody’s Fine: Some think the family drama is okay because of Robert De Niro, and others think it’s awful despite him. What they’re saying: It’s “a thoroughly fake movie that is about, of all things, the need for truthfulness,” writes Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter. “Characters have no depth, and all emotions get ladled on via a syrupy score and De Niro's strenuous acting.” Rooting for these characters “requires saintly moviegoing patience I clearly don't have,” says Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, adding that the script was written “under guidance, apparently, from Dr. Phil.” De Niro is “very good,” says Bill Goodykoontz of the Arizona Republic, but the film doesn’t trust its audience, and the ending is “pure sap.” It “may well be fine, but it could have been a lot better.” You may feel as if you’ve “been run over by the pathos van,” because the movie borders on “emotional fraud.” But it’s such a relief to see De Niro "in a project that does not stink” that Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune liked it anyway.