A Movie From The Peak Kate Beckinsale Era Is Now On Netflix
One of Kate Beckinsale's more notable titles just hit Netflix.
This article is more than 2 years old
When Kate Beckinsale starred in 2009s Everybody’s Fine, which now can be seen on Netflix, it came during the height of her career.
Everybody’s Fine stars Kate Beckinsale as Amy Goode, one of four siblings to father Frank Goode, played by Robert De Niro. The film follows Frank, a recent widower, who is planning a visit from all four of his kids. But as the day gets closer to the visit, they each call him up, one by one, canceling. Not sure what to make of the cancellations, he decides to road trip to visit each child in turn.
His first trip is to New York City, despite warnings from his doctor not to travel. Frank goes to the Big Apple to visit his son David, who doesn’t appear at home and never shows up. As he is leaving town to visit another of his children, Frank sees one of David’s art pieces in the window of a local art gallery.
Frank’s next stop is to see Amy (Kate Beckinsale). By all appearances, Amy is living a fine life. When she canceled her visit, Amy had told Frank that her son Jack was sick, which he finds out wasn’t the case. When Frank has dinner with Amy, Jack and Amy’s husband Jeff, Frank can see all is not well. Jack and Jeff do not get along. Before Amy takes Frank to the train station so he can go visit his other son Robert, she introduces him to her co-worker Tom.
When Frank arrives to see Robert (Sam Rockwell), he is expecting to see his son conduct the city’s orchestra when, in fact, Robert only plays percussion in the orchestra. Frank also learns that his timing couldn’t be any worse because the orchestra is traveling to Europe the next day, so Frank’s visit has to be cut short. Naturally, this is a lie by Robert.
Frank is off to visit his daughter Rosie (Drew Barrymore) next. Rosie picks up Frank in a stretch limo, indicating that all is well with her life. At her big apartment, her friend Jilly brings over her baby for Rosie to look after. But Frank overhears a phone message and realizes that the apartment Rosie is in is borrowed from a friend.
Frank can’t understand why his children have not been honest with him. He questions Rosie about it, who finally breaks down, telling him they (his children) were never comfortable talking to him because his expectations of them were so high as well as he simply never listened to them.
Despondent, Frank heads home. On the flight home, he suffers a heart attack. When Frank wakes in the hospital, Kate Beckinsale, Drew Barrymore, and Sam Rockwell’s characters are there along with their many secrets.
Everybody’s Fine is a story about connections. Parent and children. How, as parents, we have the ability to be part of our children’s lives and what it takes to remain there. It also tells the story of how life is fleeting. One minute your children are three years old and the next, they are raising three-year-old’s themselves. Frank, in his visits to his kids, realized his only connection to his children was through his now-deceased wife, their mother. Is it too late for him to regain that connection?
Everybody’s Fine is a remake of the Giuseppe Tornatore Italian film of the same name. While the movie tells a nice story, it wasn’t a box office success. Kirk Jones wrote and directed the movie on a $21 million budget that saw a return of only $16 million.
For Kate Beckinsale, Everybody’s Fine came at a point where she was hitting on all cylinders. From as early as 1999, Beckinsale was in some high-profile movies such as Brokedown Palace, Pearl Harbor, Laurel Canyon, Van Helsing, The Aviator, Vacancy, and Nothing But the Truth. During this time, Beckinsale also began the Underworld film franchise as Selene, a franchise that has seen five movies, Underworld, Underworld: Evolution, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Underworld: Awakening, and Underworld: Blood Wars.
While Brokedown Palace opened Hollywood eyes for Kate Beckinsale, it was her role as a war nurse in Pearl Harbor that got her the attention. She almost didn’t get the part though. During her audition, she arrived wearing leather pants and had Pearl Harbor director Michael Bay liken her to a “slut”. “I wasn’t sure about her at first, but she wore black leather trousers in her screen test and I thought she was a little nasty,” Bay said via the Nzherald. “This movie is about a love triangle, and it was easy to think of this woman as a slut.”
Kate Beckinsale defends herself nicely against Bay’s accusations. She says Bay complained that she wore her leather pants on more than one occasion, to which Beckinsale says via ThisIsLondon, “He lied. I only wore them once, and it was snowing out. It wasn’t exactly like I had my nipple rings in.”
Not only that, Bay felt Kate Beckinsale may have a little extra on her frame, so he asked her to lose weight during the production. She does point out that when she arrived for her screen test, she just had her daughter Lily. No wonder there are many actors who have issues with Bay.
Lately, Kate Beckinsale has crossed over to television, as have many feature film stars. She was in the Amazon Original The Widow as a woman searching the Congo for her husband who mysteriously disappeared. If you want to see Kate Beckinsale at the top of her game, check out Everybody’s Fine on Netflix.
