You Can Count On Me
Release Date: 2000 - Wide Release
Distributor: Paramount Classics (Paramount Vantage)
Film Genre: Family Drama
Country: United States
This small realistic gem, set in an upstate New York town, looks deeply and empathetically into the loving but strained relationship between Sammy (Laura Linney), a single mother with an 8-year-old son, and Terry (Mark Ruffalo), her wastrel brother, who returns home after serving a jail sentence. The two share a special bond, having lost their parents in a car crash when they were children. Matthew Broderick is Sammy's stuffy new boss at the bank where she works as a loan officer. The tensions that erupt may not be the most melodramatic domestic problems ever filmed, but they're the stuff of life, and Linney's and Ruffalo's performances are achingly perfect. — Stephen Holden, The New York Times