Everything Must Go Movie Review

Writing a little bit about Everything Must Go isn’t hard at all. It is one of the more simple movies I’ve seen lately, but it’s a good one. I only went because I like Will Ferrell and heard he threw down  a pretty interesting performance.

The movie is a simple story of Nick who loves drinking and loses everything because of it. His wife throws all his shit on the front lawn and tells him to piss off.

He decides not to and just chills out amongst his things. A cop he’s friends with comes up with a cute idea of having a yard sale so Nick doesn’t get arrested.

The movie moves along at a snails pace, which works, but some viewers – my brother comes to mind – will hate this. It is patience with its execution and never really hints at where it is going. This is its biggest flaw.

Ages ago I read a paper on how to write screenplays, I think it was “A Crash Course in Screening Writing”, but it stated that every movie should suggest an ending or conclusion is coming.

This is a classic story telling device.

But, Everything Must Go has no such thing. A possible ending would be him reconciling with his problems, but I never felt the movie was coming close to be wrapped up. At 81 minutes, all these problems become big problems. A movie this short shouldn’t feel this long.

Regardless, we stick around for Will Ferrill and the young, great Christopher Jordan Wallace. I’ve heard he’s Notorious BIG’s son, but I can’t confirm that without evidence. Regardless, he’s great. I can imagine about fifty cliche “little black kids” that the movie could have written in, but the writer (wisely) chose to make him a soft-spoken, alienated boy from another neighborhood.

I’ve seen these relationships before and they’ve felt contrived. This time it works.

The whole movie is unassuming and underwhelming, however, if you’ve got Neflix or something it will be worth a look then.

-Collin