''Everything Put Together'' is a 2000
drama
Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
film directed by
Marc Forster
Marc Forster (born 30 November 1969) is a German-Swiss filmmaker. He is best known for directing the feature films ''Monster's Ball'', ''Finding Neverland (film), Finding Neverland'', ''Stranger than Fiction (2006 film), Stranger than Fiction'' ...
starring
Radha Mitchell
Radha Rani Amber Indigo Ananda Mitchell (born 12 November 1973) is an Australian actress. She began her career on television, playing Catherine O'Brien on the Australian soap opera ''Neighbours'' (1996–1997), before transitioning to working i ...
,
Megan Mullally
Megan Mullally (born November 12, 1958) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Karen Walker in the NBC sitcom '' Will & Grace'' (1998–2006, 2017–2020), for which she received eight Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outst ...
and
Louis Ferreira
Louis Ferreira (born Luís Henrique da Rocha Ferreira; born 20 February 1966) is a Canadian actor. Ferreira is known for his roles in ''Stargate Universe'' as Colonel Everett Young, serial killer Ray Prager in the first season of ''Durham County ...
. The story focuses on a Californian couple expecting a child and their group of friends who are confronted with the tragedy of a big loss.
The film premiered at the 2000
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023.
The festival has acted ...
and later received a limited theatrical release in North America on November 2, 2001.
Plot
Angie and Russ, a couple in an affluent California suburb, are expecting a baby. The couple excitedly prepares for impending parenthood by celebrating with their closest friends, including Angie's girlfriends Judith and Barbie, both of whom are also expecting. Angie and Russ’ bliss is abruptly shattered with an unexpected loss when their newborn succumbs to
SIDS
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), sometimes known as cot death or crib death, is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and ...
. As Angie spirals into depression from her grief, she finds herself ostracized by Judith and Barbie, who assume she wants solitude to deal with the loss.
Cast
*
Radha Mitchell
Radha Rani Amber Indigo Ananda Mitchell (born 12 November 1973) is an Australian actress. She began her career on television, playing Catherine O'Brien on the Australian soap opera ''Neighbours'' (1996–1997), before transitioning to working i ...
as Angie
*
Megan Mullally
Megan Mullally (born November 12, 1958) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Karen Walker in the NBC sitcom '' Will & Grace'' (1998–2006, 2017–2020), for which she received eight Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outst ...
as Barbie
*
Louis Ferreira
Louis Ferreira (born Luís Henrique da Rocha Ferreira; born 20 February 1966) is a Canadian actor. Ferreira is known for his roles in ''Stargate Universe'' as Colonel Everett Young, serial killer Ray Prager in the first season of ''Durham County ...
as Russ
*
Matt Malloy
Matt Malloy (born December 6, 1963) is an American actor and producer who has appeared extensively on television, film, and radio. Malloy's break-out performance was his co-starring role alongside Aaron Eckhart and Stacy Edwards in the 1997 bl ...
as Dr. Reiner
*
Mark Boone Junior
Mark Boone Junior (born Mark Heidrich; March 17, 1955) is an American character actor, best known for his TV roles as Bobby Munson in ''Sons of Anarchy'' (2008–2014) and Patrick "Pat" Brown in '' Last Man On Earth'' (2016-2017), and film roles ...
as Bill
*
Catherine Lloyd Burns as Judith
*
Michele Hicks as April
*
Alan Ruck
Alan Douglas Ruck (born July 1, 1956) is an American actor. He is known for portraying Cameron Frye in John Hughes' film '' Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' (1986), as well as television roles as Stuart Bondek on the ABC sitcom '' Spin City'' (1996� ...
as Kessel
Production
The film, which is Forster's directorial debut, was shot in two weeks on a
digital camera
A digital camera, also called a digicam, is a camera that captures photographs in Digital data storage, digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Dig ...
on a budget of less than $10,000.
''Everything Put Together'' premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, where it garnered comparisons to films like ''
Rosemary's Baby''.
The distribution arm of
American Cinematheque
The American Cinematheque is an independent, non-profit cultural organization in Los Angeles, California, United States that represents the public presentation of the moving image in all its forms.
It presents festivals and retrospectives that ...
picked up the film and released it in a limited rollout that nearly coincided with the release of Forster's follow-up, ''
Monster's Ball
''Monster's Ball'' is a 2001 American romantic drama film directed by Marc Forster, produced by Lee Daniels and written by Milo Addica and Will Rokos, who also appeared in the film. It stars Billy Bob Thornton, Heath Ledger, Halle Berry, and ...
''.
Critical reception
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film has an approval rating of 69% based on 29 reviews.
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy () is a veteran, well-known American film critic and professor emeritus of sociology and film of Arizona State University. For the past 50 years, he has taught a wide variety of courses in sociology, film studies, and popular cultur ...
of ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' called it a "riveting, haunting chronicle" and praised Mitchell's performance.
He noted the film's weakest aspects, such as the development of characters besides Angie's, "are almost overcome by Forster’s bravura visual style, endowing a rather familiar story with a fresh, bold treatment."
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden (born July 18, 1941) is an American writer, poet, and music and film critic.
Biography
Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963. He worked as a photo editor, staff writer, and eventually be ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' critiqued the film's tonal clashes, noting that on one level, the film plays as a "sober educational seminar on sudden infant death syndrome,” while on another level, "it is a psychological horror film that follows Angie's descent into a clinical depression accompanied by scary delusional fantasies."
Holden said the film was most effective in its "expressionistic critique of the suburban baby culture and its joys, fears and fetishes. Its satirically edged view of a group of pregnant women preparing for motherhood recalls the creepy scenes of suburban togetherness in
Todd Haynes
Todd Haynes (; born January 2, 1961) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films span four decades with themes examining the personalities of well-known musicians, dysfunctional and dystopian societies, and blurred gender ...
's film ''
Safe
A safe (also called a strongbox or coffer) is a secure lockable enclosure used for securing valuable objects against theft or fire. A safe is usually a hollow cuboid or cylinder, with one face being removable or hinged to form a door. The body ...
''", adding, "If the movie's horror effects lend ''Everything Put Together'' an aura of creepiness, the scenes that hurt most are those in which she runs into old friends who can barely stifle their panic as they seek to flee her contaminating presence."
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman (born February 24, 1959) is an American film critic who has been chief film critic for '' Variety'' magazine since May 2016, a title he shares with . Previously, Gleiberman wrote for ''Entertainment Weekly'' from 1990 until 2014. ...
of ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...
'' was more critical and gave the film a grade of "B-", writing the film "is too responsible to erupt into the kind of operatic maternal horror it keeps threatening the audience with."
Accolades
At the
2001 Independent Spirit Awards, Forster won the Someone to Watch Award and was nominated for the
John Cassavetes Award for Best Feature Under $500,000.
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Marc Forster
2000 films
2000 independent films
Films directed by Marc Forster
2000 directorial debut films
American drama films
2000 drama films
American pregnancy films
2000s pregnancy films
Films about grief
Films about child death
Films about depression
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
English-language independent films