An Unfinished Life (2005)

Directed by: Lasse Hallström | 103 minutes | drama | Actors: Robert Redford, Jennifer Lopez, Morgan Freeman, Josh Lucas, Damian Lewis, Camryn Manheim, Becca Gardner, Lynda Boyd, R. Nelson Brown, Sean J. Dory, Rob Hayter, P. Lynn Johnson, Bart de Beer

‘An Unfinished Life’ is a family drama set in the beautiful Wyoming area. The story is about damaged people, who have to forgive themselves and each other. It should not be the environment, it looks really magnificent. The landscapes with beautiful forests and mountains splash off the screen. Pictures like from a nature film that one will certainly enjoy.

Robert Redford plays the bitter grunt Einar Gilkyson. He lives an unhappy life on his ranch. He has still not recovered from his drinking and continues to suffer greatly from the death of his son in a car accident some twelve years earlier. Jennifer Lopez plays his daughter-in-law Jean, who fell asleep in the accident. Their paths apparently parted after the fatal accident and they have not seen each other since. Jean has fled and has ended up in a series of mixed relationships with abusive boyfriends who regularly mistreat her. She flees from her last very loose-handed boyfriend and knows no other way out than to go to Einar’s ranch with her eleven-year-old daughter Griff. The bitter old man does not want to let her into his life, but because he is very surprised by the fact that he suddenly turns out to have a granddaughter, he takes them into his house against his will.

The story then develops according to an extremely predictable pattern. Of course, little Griff is going to thaw Einar’s heart. There Mitch Bradley (another characteristic Morgan Freeman role) once again plays the wise old man. Mitch is cared for by Einar after being attacked by a bear. That bear also plays an essential role in certain developments in the story. The bear accident happened about a year before Jean and Griff reappeared in Einar’s life. Einar has also taken on the role of caretaker again out of guilt, when the fight between Mitch and the bear took place Einar was too drunk to help. So there’s a lot of guilt and penance ingrained in this classic Hollywood scenario. Mitch, however, does not hate the bear, the bear did what a bear does. So it is a scenario in which a lot of debt complexes come together.

That makes the whole very predictable, because this story has to end well, especially if the ‘bad guy’ (Jean’s boyfriend with the loose hands) also shows up at the ranch. The storyline is very simple and you can see the happy ending coming from a long way off. Too little drama for a film with two such classy actors as Redford and Freeman, Jennifer Lopez is more known for other things. For a film in which so many people walk around with a guilt complex, a rather meager story. The characters are not particularly deepened, the developments are fairly predictable. In the end it all works out and this is a film where you can especially enjoy the beautiful images of nature.