HLJ's Movie Blog

You Can Count on Me

Originally written December 4, 2000

The film, You Can Count on Me is about denial. Often when we go to the movies, we expect to sit spellbound in the theater. We also expect to become emotionally attached to a character in a film and to have their problems resolved by the end of the film. Although You Can Count on Me does follow a typical three act structure and uses many of the conventions of continuity editing, it plays with the viewers expectations of what they should know and see.

The film’s plot denies the viewer expected story information throughout the film. In the second scene, the Scottsdale police come to inform Sammy and Terry of their parents’ death. We expect to see the officer tell the children what has happened and we expect to see their reaction. We can see in the police officers eyes that it is a difficult task. But we are never allowed to hear him say what happened to the parents. Nor are we allowed to see the children’s reactions. Instead, the film moves on to the funeral. As the pastor speaks, her words are drowned out by the non-diegetic music on the soundtrack. As the camera moves to the children, they sit motionless and tearless. The film then skips several years (if not decades), never giving us any information on how the children were provided for after the loss of their parents. As the film ends, there is little resolution for any of the characters. Terry has left home, without any real plan for providing for himself. Sammy’s relationship with Bob is not resolved (will she marry him?). And it is not clear how Rudy will handle the truth about his father and the loss of his Uncle Terry.

The relationship that we see on screen between Sammy and Rudy is also marked with this denial. Never do we see them embrace or exchange signs of affection (like saying I love you to one another). The film sets up Sammy as a good mother, who leaves work to pickup her son each day from his bus stop, but she is never shown to be an affectionate mother. The film works to deny us access to the character’s emotions and by doing so, does not allow the viewers emotional attachment to the characters.

The film also uses framing and editing to deny the viewer some of their expectations. There were many long takes throughout the film that framed only inactivity when there should have been a cut to a reaction shot or a close-up. One examples is at the funeral, as the camera frames Sammy and Terry sitting silently and motionless. A few close-ups of the children in tears would normally been expected, but instead the camera lingers over them as they sit. Another example of how the long take is used in this manner is during Terry and Rudy’s pool game at the bar. After Terry intentionally misses a shot, their opponent takes over. As this person shoots, the camera frames only Terry and Rudy as they sit and watch. We are never allowed to see the opponent or shots from his point of view. Normally, it would be expected that there would be several different shots in this sequence, but there are not.

This is not a film that tries to immerse the viewer into the story. Instead, it works to expose the fact that a film cannot replicate the human experience. Often as viewers, we expect to sit captivated while watching a movie, forgetting that we are only watching light passing through celluloid. Each time the camera lingers a little too long, or the music drowns out the dialogue during the film, we are reminding that it is, after all, only a film that we are watching.