Word: turneritis
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...first shots of the film pan around a dusty attic, presenting bleached skulls and archaeological trinkets like a still life on a conveyor belt, until the camera settles on Henry Lair (Caine). Henry, the ailing patriarch of the fragmented Lair family, has just summoned his son Turner (Walken) to what he knows to be his deathbed...
...staring at death with a smile, reveling in the simple pleasure of ”drumming for an idea.” He exudes the demeanor of someone who has fully understood life’s glory, and wants nothing more than to share this feeling with others, especially Turner, who walked out on his own son Jason (Josh Lucas) thirty years earlier...
...When Turner tries to leave again after only one day home, Henry takes him to task, declaring that he is “still on the stairway,” and not yet able to mend his relationship with Jason. A large part of Turner’s reason for staying seems to be no nobler than his attraction to the madcap Danish nurse Katrina (Glenne Headly) hired by Jason to tend to Henry, nicely echoing the 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in which she and Caine had an electrifying comedic dynamic...
Walken’s portrayal of Turner avoids shortcuts: he refuses to spend the trip begging for Jason’s forgiveness. Instead, they slowly edge towards an understanding, with both men making human missteps along the way. After realizing that the places they visit were chosen by Henry to force him to painfully relive past traumas, however, Turner, believing that his old man does this out of spite, bitterly spits out, “My father always loved digging up old shit...
...Turner, however, slowly opens up to his restored family as the journey proceeds, and starts to mention parts of his life that have been kept in the dark for decades. He first acknowledges his criminal past with a wry comparison to Henry’s archaeological digs, telling young Zach that “some things want to be taken.” Just as Henry only brings his fractured family together by stealing them, Roberts has shown that he’s not just “digging up shit,” but reassembling a borrowed genre with...