All Good Things is a film based on a truly astonishing real life case in the United States with which - until I watched the movie - I was completely unfamiliar. The story is, when you know about the case, very obviously based on the life of the real estate heir Robert Durst, although in the film he is called David Marks, and is played (very well) by the versatile Ryan Gosling. In this review, I'll concentrate on the film rather than the man who inspired it (and, amazingly, approved it).
Much of the story is set in the 1970s, in a protracted flashback from a court case. Marks is the son of a dodgy tycoon (strongly portrayed by Frank Langella) who owns a chunk of Times Square and is affected by a terrible experience - aged seven, he witnessed his mother's suicide. He meets a young woman, Katie McCarthy, who has ambitions to study medicine and they begin a relationship and eventually get married.
Katie (again well played, by another high-calibre actor, Kirsten Dunst) wants to start a family, but Marks refuses to go along with this. When she becomes pregnant, he puts her under pressure to have an abortion. Gradually the couple drift apart and Katie focuses on her medical studies. To say much more would be a spoiler, but suffice to say that there are several significant plot twists.
Because of the real-life origins of the story, it veers around in the messy way that real life does, rather than than in an artistically elegant fashion. This may be why the film hasn't garnered as much praise as perhaps it deserves. However, I thought it was interesting and unusual. If you aren't familiar with the Durst case, I suggest you do what I did, and watch the film before finding out about the background to it. You may be as startled by the true story as I was...
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