The Film
We haven't seen a lot of Helen Hunt lately. After a three-year absence (according to IMDB), she made her big comeback with the dramedy Every Day. Um, welcome back?
Every Day is actually a story about Ned (Liev Schreiber), a TV writer with a conscience, his pained wife Jeannie (Hunt), and two sons -- one of which (Ezra Miller) is gay. To throw a crap-filled (sometimes literally) wrench into the family dynamic is Jeannie's ailing father (Brian Dennehy) and Ned's free-spirit (i.e. slutty) co-worker Robin (Carla Gugino).
These are characters that we've seen a million times in scenarios that we've seen even more. The only difference here is casting, which is basically the only thing holding Every Day together. Still, director/producer Richard Levine's (Nip/Tuck) script really makes them work for the meager payoff. The movie starts off in a familiar direction, only to get weird, depressing, and tiresome, all in the short span of 90 minutes.
There's nothing wrong with weird, when it's effective. However, Every Day is supposed to be a slice of life. Unfortunately, it's the slice where you're matching socks and flossing your teeth. In other words, it's sort of boring.
The Picture
Every Day starts out with a piece of whole-grain bread on a granite countertop. This is some good looking bread, with lots of seeds and a glossy, fatty smear of butter. This image has some tasty detail. From there, the 1.85:1 transfer takes sort of a dim turn. It's highly possible that the filmmakers wanted to start off the day on the bright side, and things slowly go downhill. However, that seems to be a bit of a stretch here. Instead, the film just doesn't seem to have a very extended color palette.
The Sound
The audio for Every Day is pretty mellow. It's fairly dialogue-driven, which the DTS-HD Master Audio track delivers quite well. There's a school dance and a club dance and even some reverberance by the pool which adds a bit of pop to the track. It's nothing you'll remember long enough to mention to friends, but it's completely suitable for this type of film.
The Extras
Like the movie, the extras for Every Day are fairly typical. There are a total of seven deleted scenes, the theatrical trailer, and 14 minutes of cast and crew interviews. The latter does reveal that the teenage son and the Brian Dennehy portions of the film are based on writer/director/producer Richard Levine's own experiences. Other than that, everyone just gives their own little opinion about the movie in a fairly monotone manner.
Final Thoughts
An all-star cast is what's going to hook you into this film, as well as the only thing that will keep you from flipping the film off (in more ways than one). The image and extras aren't making a good case for picking this one up, either. Overall, this probably would have played better as an episode of writer/director/producer Richard Levine's Nip/Tuck. As a movie, Every Day is a little too much like an actual day, in that it can be pretty darn boring.
Product Details
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