An Unfinished Life (2005)

I enjoyed watching this movie. It has the high quality I would expect from the director of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, another movie that relies on a solid story and good acting to carry it through. The actors top to bottom are as good as they need to be. I especially like that the girl wasn’t turned into one of those witty, smart-mouthed sitcom brats you often see. The character is fairly serious and a few times comes out with an observation that is meaningful and believable. Like the comment to her grandfather that an old boyfriend of her mother only hit her Mom with words, like he did. In some ways the story was predictable and the abusive boyfriend was almost just a stereotype. Then again, the reason we have cliches and stereotypes is that they are common in real life, but they could has shown a greater imagination in presenter atheist woman beater, for example. Still, it is a movie worth watching, if not memorable or worth multiple viewings.