Everything Must Go (2010) - Know what you're getting from a film  

'Everything Must Go' will never be a commercial success. At best, it's going to be one of those films that will find its market several years from when it was first released.

For a start, it has Will Ferrell as the leading man - an actor constantly linked with madcap, silly throwaway comedies. Secondly, and if you've seen the trailer you'll know what I mean, it's sold as a `comedy.' It's not. It's a melodrama. And, possibly worse still, it's very sad.

Will Ferrell plays Nick Halsey - an alcoholic who, on the same day, gets fired and finds out his wife is leaving him by returning home to find she has thrown all his possessions out onto the front lawn. And that's that really. There's not much of a plot/story to it. Another thing you should know is that the film doesn't really move from there - the whole ninety minutes is spent on Ferrell's front/rear lawn (and a lot of people seem to have critisised it for this).

What little story there is, centres on themes rather than moving the script along. It deals with loss and hope. If you've ever been made redundant, you may well empathise with Ferrell who has to endure the feeling of being thrown on the scrapheap just when you really didn't need it. He accurately portrays a real sense of emptiness, confused hostility to people who, under normal circumstances, he wouldn't treat like that. Plus the hope that his wife may come back. He doesn't know what's what and is in the dark.

If you're looking for a deeper (laugh-free!) movie, you may get something out of this. However, if you're expecting some sort of `Anchorman II' laugh-a-minute flick, you may feel slightly cheated.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back