“The Upside of Anger” reverses cause and effect
“The Upside of Anger:” Does anger cause alcoholism, or does alcoholism cause anger?
Movie Review: Reviewers describe Joan Allen’s character Terry Wolfmeyer in “The Upside of Anger” as “furious,” “rage fuelled” and a “control freak.” They also call her a “lush” and one stewing “in a home brew of bile and vodka.” Although not as anger-fuelled as many alcoholics (though snappy, nasty and sardonic, there’s little outright screaming), for once the reviewers get it partly right. However, they don’t seem to grasp cause and effect in attributing the behaviors to alcoholism. Nor does the movie itself, with the narration describing her as the nicest person anyone ever knew until anger turned her into a sad and bitter woman. The role of alcoholism in causing anger is not made clear; in fact, the uninitiated could easily conclude that the anger caused her drinking.
Terry suspects her husband has run off to Sweden with his secretary. We are to believe this is the cause of her heavy drinking and nasty behaviors. However, when she’s trying to get her daughters off to school quickly (so she can have drinking buddy and sometimes boyfriend Denny Davies over for a little sex) by making them lunch, one says, “You haven’t done that in years.” When another daughter becomes seriously ill and is hospitalized, she tells her mother, “You don’t seem to care all that much about me, unless like now, when I’m sick…You need to pay more attention to me.” These two scenes suggest years of psychological abandonment in favor of drinking.
The movie otherwise ignores the behaviors of early-stage alcoholism, leading to what is now a more obvious beginning of late-stage alcoholism. She pauses after pulling two bottles from a shelf at the market, grabbing a third. On the road, she flips off neighbors asking her to slow down. When one of her daughters asks if she’s ok, she responds, “No. I’m a wreck.” She describes her husband as “a vile, selfish pig. But I’m not going to trash him to you girls.” Shocked that her eldest daughter is pregnant and marrying, upon meeting the groom’s parents at a luncheon, she says, “I need a Bloody Mary as soon as it’s humanly possible,” and quickly downs two. In a comment inconsistent with euphoric recall (addicts often remember their behaviors in a self-favoring light), she admits to Denny after the luncheon, “I made an ass of myself, like a public service film against drinking.”
Denny, played by Kevin Costner, is a has-been former “super sports” baseball hero relegated to selling autographed baseballs and hosting a sports radio talk show in which he talks about cooking and gives stock tips. While Terry is a foul-mouthed drunk, Denny gets stoned while drinking beer, but never acts nasty, in yet another inconsistent portrayal of a likely late-stage alcoholic. (It’s even possible Denny isn’t one; he could simply be a sometimes heavy drinker who occasionally smokes dope who is down on his luck.)
Terry’s bottom seems to occur when she sees her daughter near death in the hospital, after which she walks past the vodka in the market. Denny’s producer Shep (played by the movie’s writer-director Mike Binder) runs into her and says, “I should come over some night with a bottle and you and I should talk,” to which she responds, “I’m not drinking.” Shep is the likely undiagnosed alcoholic in the movie; he looks hung over in almost every scene and inflates his ego by seducing girls half his age (few couples of widely disparate ages do not include at least one alcoholic).
The film’s narration ends with the comment, “anger and resentment can stop you in your tracks…The only upside to anger is the person you become…anger, like growth, comes in spurts.” The implication is that if she hadn’t been so angry, she’d have discovered her husband’s whereabouts more quickly, and she wouldn’t have been angry. This is incorrect. She is an alcoholic; anger, especially in the latter stages, goes with the territory.