Surprised at so little talk on this, because it's really strong and easily matches up to McCarthy's previous works. (If you're a fan of McCarthy, that is, and why wouldn't you be unless you're a soulless monster.) It's a bit of a divergence for him, since he's so far focused on lives less ordinary-- Fin in The Station Agent, Tarek and Zainab in The Visitor-- but he finds a wealth of really great characters and emotion and insight in focusing on the lives of these suburban and familiar people. Giamatti, unsurprisingly, is pretty great here in his beset upon everyman mode, except that it never feels like a mode with him but something much more genuine. Alex Simmons actually impressed me the most here, though-- he makes that okay-whatever-couldn't-care-less teenage attitude into something endearing instead of something truly obnoxious and off-putting, which is no small feat.
