Stanley Philips has a problem. When this hardware store manager and father of two learns his Sergeant wife was just killed in Iraq he has the burden of telling his two young daughters. He irrationally decides to take a spontaneous road trip to a Florida theme park in a desperate attempt to preserve their innocence and possibly cope with his own grief first so he can fully be there for them. Along the way their relationships deepen as they get to know one another--possibly for the first time.
I believed in John Cusack’s performance as Stanley and I was particularly taken by Shélan O’Keefe as his eldest daughter. I thought their chemistry was beautiful and it brought the film to levels beyond it’s script. I was confused by the choice of altering Home Depot and DisneyWorld into Home Store and Enchanted Gardens (hey, why not change Iraq to Irazistan?). It also seemed a little strange that Mary Kay Place’s roll as Stanley’s Mom was entirely deleted, but I suppose I can also accept that the conflicts were not about the number of people Stanley had to prove himself to. There may have been weird details here and there that didn’t work (like a super-strange encounter with a boy and his mom at a hotel), but ultimately Grace is Gone is a powerful and simple anti-war film about innocence, strength and dignity and I was deeply moved.
