Though this movie won't win any awards, it's still a pure pleasure to watch. I have to say, however, that Redford really looks his age. I don't think Redford and Freeman have ever been better than they are in this film. This is displayed most effectively in how Redford takes care of his crippled friend by helping him to get around, making his meals, playing cards with him, and eventually following his advice about everything. These two men have a strong friendship that knows no bounds. What makes An Unfinished Life truly shine is the interaction between Redford's character and Freeman's. That's when all hell breaks lose and we find out just how tough Redford's character really is. Then, during the last third of the movie, Lopez' abusive boyfriend tracks her down and is intent on having her leave with him. At first Redford feels that Lopez is being unfaithful to the memory of his son, but gradually relents due to the good nature of the sheriff. As this is happening, Lopez develops a relationship with the town's sheriff (played by Josh Lucas). Through trials and tribulations, Redford and the two females slowly start to become close to each other. He doesn't hesitate to tell Redford that he's wrong about blaming Lopez for his son's death in a car accident and that he needs to get to know his granddaughter. As it turns out, Freeman is also Redford's conscious. He stays in the small house adjacent to the main quarters. Freeman's character was mauled by a grizzly bear and is now somewhat of a cripple. The two females move in with Redford and his long-time ranch hand and close friend (played by Freeman). Later, when Redford sees Lopez and Gardiner in town, he has a change of heart and tells them that they're welcome to stay at his place if they want. Of course, there wouldn't be much of a story if that happened. The fact that he's suddenly a grandfather, however, doesn't stop Redford from telling his daughter-in-law that he doesn't want her there and to leave. When Lopez reaches Redford's ranch, it turns out the neither he, nor her daughter, knew of each other. When the car finally reaches its last leg, Lopez has no choice but to head to Wyoming and a father-in-law (played by Redford) who blames her for the death of his only son. The story starts out with Lopez and her teenage daughter, Gardiner, leaving an abusive relationship with hardly any money and a broken-down car. Though a predictable movie, An Unfinished Life is still a very good film with excellent performances by Redford, Freeman, Jennifer Lopez, Josh Lucas, and Becca Gardiner. The sledgehammer director Lasse Hallströaut m ( The Shipping News) sometimes wields makes no appearance here instead, he finds redemption for pain in the minutiae of life: in the grudging allowance to the farm cats their taste of still- warm- from- the- cow milk every morning, in the making of a sandwich on mushy white bread he finds the love in the bickering and the sniping that occupies this thrown- together family.I think An Unfinished Life is one of the few movies that both Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman have made that came on in the theaters one weekend and then disappeared two weeks later. He will not end the movie a total softie, of course, but damn close. (It’s even got marshmallows on top: Josh Lucas as a small- town sheriff, all deliciously scruffy and uniformed.) Redford’s ( The Clearing) Iowa rancher starts out the film saddled with a crippled ranchhand (Morgan Freeman: Unleashed) he tends with a masculine gruffness, an estranged daughter- in- law (Jennifer Lopez: Monster-in-Law) he hates with an inexplicable passion, an 11- year- old granddaughter (Becca Gardner) he never knew he had and doesn’t know how to deal with, and a chip on his shoulder the size of his beatup pickup truck. The insights into the kind of caged personal hells too many of us live in many not be entirely original, but the journey out of that hell is a warm, comfortable, homey one - this is a movie to curl up with on a chilly winter’s night this is the movie equivalent of a mug of hot cocoa. It’s sort of obvious in that Robert Redford-y way we’ve come to know of late: the rugged, wounded, horse- whispering nonsmoking Marlboro Man coming to terms with Life, the Universe, and Everything, particularly his own cantankerousness.
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