‘Count’ on a masterfully done film

Max Jacobson

Friday, Dec. 22, 2000 | 9:58 a.m.

Grade: ***

Starring: Laura Linney, Nark Ruffalo, Matthew Borderick and Rory Culkin.

Screenplay: Kenneth Lonergan.

Director: Kenneth Lonergan.

Rated: R.

Running time: 111 minutes.

Playing at: Regal Cinemas Village Square 18.

All of us ponder life's intangibles from time to time, and one of the most recurrent themes running through our minds is the "what might have been" scenario. "You Can Count On Me," written and directed by the talented Kenneth Lonergan, deals with this idea in most poignant fashion.

The story, which takes place in a bucolic small town in upstate New York, opens with an unspeakable tragedy that deeply affects the lives of two siblings, a brother and a sister. After watching this moving story, you can't help but wonder who they might have become under other circumstances.

Not that they aren't both formidable and worthy individuals, even the way things are in this script. The film stars the first-rate actress Laura Linney as Sammy, and even though she gives a performance occasionally marred by excessive mannerisms, she still manages a real tour de force.

Linney, who has been seen in films such as "The Truman Show" and "Primal Fear," alternates between being bland and spiritless, spontaneous and unpredictable, warm and level headed. It's one of the most layered performances by an actress in years.

Playing opposite her is a relative newcomer named Mark Ruffalo as Sammy's troubled, but oddly ethical brother Terry. You may not like the character he plays at first, a sort of cynical and irresponsible ne'er do well, but Ruffalo, a curly haired, method actor cut from the Marlon Brando/James Dean school, grows on you. Just how effective an actor he is may not register with you until you are well outside the theater.

The plot is almost incidental to the dynamics between the characters, but the story is basically this. Sammy is a hard-working single mother who works in a bank, which has recently acquired a new manager named Brian (Matthew Broderick).

Sammy has lived in her hometown her entire life and she labors mightily to balance raising a son, Rudy (Rory Culkin, the youngest and perhaps least affected member of the Culkin acting clan) with the rigors of a tedious job and the uncertainty of dating life.

One day she gets a phone call from her wayward brother, who she refers to as "the most important person in her life," informing her of an upcoming visit. Naturally, she is excited, but she is also guarded, because although she loves her brother dearly, she knows his presence is bound to be unsettling, in particular for her little son. Initially, it is supposed to be a short visit, but we, the audience, know better.

Later a few wrinkles come to the surface. The normally controlled Sammy begins an almost inexplicable affair with her controlling, almost pathological boss, despite the fact that her boss' wife is pregnant and that she is already involved, and seriously, with a well-intentioned guy named Bob (Jon Tenney).

And then she starts to become conflicted about the mixed messages that Uncle Terry keeps giving her vulnerable little son. There is one especially well-written scene when Terry tries to get the boy to fasten a seat belt, and another very moving scene when Terry decides the boy should meet his biological father. What you don't get in this film is much of a denouement, and in that regard, it is very much like real life. In Hollywood, conflicts are resolved and things come neatly wrapped at the end of a story or film. In real life, however, just as in this film, life goes on and so do problems and family relationships and, often, nothing at all is resolved.

Lonergan has riddled his script with interesting little vignettes. One of the best written scenes involves Linney attempting to confess her sins to a New Age minister, only to be assuaged by him when what her soul really craves is a little fire and brimstone. Another interesting scene involves the minister and the iconoclastic Terry.

Lonergan is a playwright with a good ear for dialogue, and this film marks his directorial debut. Like the words of James Brooks, who directed "Terms of Endearment" and "As Good As It Gets," Lonergan's dialogue has a TV-like quality. This is highly unlikely to be the last film we see from him.

Max Jacobson covers the food industry and writes movie reviews for the Sun. Reach him at max@vegas.com or 990-2454.