All Good Things

Traditional Crime Docu-Drama Dressed Up To Sophisticated And Riveting Entertainment
If you're old enough to remember the TV landscape from about a dozen years ago, you'll remember that the airwaves were littered every week with crime stories "inspired by" or "based on" true events. This entertaining, yet exploitative, sub-genre straddling the line between thriller and docu-drama has since been shifted to cable TV for the most part and, generally, the quality of this type of film has been marred by an unnecessary camp factor. I mention this in preface to talking about the fascinating feature "All Good Things," a film by award winning documentarian Andrew Jarecki, not as a negative association--but as an incredibly positive note. "All Good Things" employs everything that has been overdone about this genre, and despite the familiarity in story telling, stands as a richly intriguing and superbly acted drama. In truth, I loved "All Good Things!"

Based on a real New York missing person's case involving a wealthy and powerful real estate family, "All Good...

Not that good, but...
This pains me, since there is something within this film that is so amazing I feel it needs to be regarded as such, but three stars, while not awful, is certainly telling to the quality of this film as a whole.

Does that make sense?

First, the movie. The film follows the true story (as much can be true in a film `inspired' by real events) of David Marks, a troubled young man looking for ways to rebel against a family that controls his every move (subconsciously, which is the best way). When David meets and falls for Katie, it seems as though his life may start to iron out. He walks away from his father `real estate' clutches and ventures off into a life all his own with Katie, but darkness erodes all happiness when David allows his father's manipulations to reel him back to New York, back into life in the Marks' family. All tumbles downhill, rather rapidly, when familial tendencies begin to separate David and Katie until, one day, Katie disappears...

Stranger than Fiction
ALL THINGS GOOD is a polished little film based on a true story that while it may not have the visual gruesome detail of the usual thriller tropes of films, it is terrifying in its presentation of personality variations that produce a shuddering reaction on a purely intellectual level for the audience. It is both a love story and a missing persons/murder mystery based on a still unsolved case that continues to haunt New York investigators and reporters and detectives. What writers Marcus Hinchey and Marc Smerling have created from known and newly discovered facts, speculation and court records results in a psychological examination of a powerful New York family, obsession, love and loss. The film relates incidents that began in 1972 and end in 2003 and at this time the truth is still unknown. Director Andrew Jarecki uses a superb cast and a fine sense of voice-over narration to interweave the puzzling history with the gradual dissolution of each of the characters involved...

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