Raymond Carver was an incredible writer — if you don’t believe me, pick up “Cathedral,” his best short story collection, or watch Short Cuts, in which auteur director Robert Altman brilliantly strung nine of Carver’s short stories. I bring up Carver because his short story, “Why Don’t You Dance?” serves as the inspiration for the upcoming Will Ferrell dramatic comedy, Everything Must Go. The film showed up at the Toronto and London film festivals, and will have a limited release on May 6. The official film synopsis tells us:
“Adapted and directed by Dan Rush, and based on a short story by Raymond Carver, EVERYTHING MUST GO tells the story of NICK PORTER (WILL FERRELL) a career salesman whose days of being on top are long gone. The same day Nick gets fired, for falling off the wagon one last time, he returns home to discover his wife has left him, changed the locks on their suburban home and dumped all his possessions out on the front yard. Faced with his life imploding, Nick puts it all on the line – or more properly, on the lawn – reluctantly holding a yard sale that becomes a unique strategy for survival.”
Upon watching the trailer (which you can view in Quicktime here, or below) this seems to be the perfect “dramatic” role for Ferrell. It’ll be nice to see him in a film in which he doesn’t play his typical idiot man-child role (which I, of course, love, but variety is the spice of life) or in yet another sports comedy(which has become tiresome, so I’m glad he stopped!)
Everything Must Go is directed by first time writer/director Dan Rush and also stars Rebecca Hall, Laura Dern, and Stephen Root.
Any interest in seeing Will Ferrell stretch his dramatic muscles? Tell us if you plan on seeing Everything Must Go below!
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