by MATTHEW HAYS

When watching a movie directed by Lasse Hallström, I’m always stumped at trying to figure out which part of his filmmaking style is the most grating. Is it the obvious and manipulative nature of the plot? Is it the cornball, feel-good premise that lies at the script’s core? Is it the irritating musical score, which rises whenever our heart is supposed to melt and our tear ducts are supposed to put out?

Truth be told, the man did once make good movies—in particular, I’m thinking of My Life as a Dog and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? But that was some time ago, and he’s since brought us such mind-numbing rot as The Cider House Rules and Chocolat. Sadly, An Unfinished Life just continues the director’s decline.

And it’s a sorry thing, because the cast he’s assembled is magnificent. Robert Redford is terrific as a bitter man who lost his son in a car accident over a decade ago. He lives on an acreage with his trusty farmhand, Morgan Freeman, who’s busy doing that wise old thing that Freeman does so well. JLo, meanwhile, plays Redford’s estranged daughter-in-law, a woman he sees as somehow responsible for his son’s death. She’s also a battered woman who shows up to stay with Redford with her daughter in tow (a grandchild Redford didn’t even know he had) to hide out from her violent boyfriend.

There’s something so astonishingly manipulative about the battered woman set-up. But don’t expect Hallström to hold back—instead, An Unfinished Life hops through every hoop imaginable, winning the clichéd screenplay contest by a landslide. There are tense moments between Redford and JLo, a plucky, pre-pubescent child, a new budding romance for JLo, the obligatory climax involving disgruntled violent ex-boyfriend (gosh, I didn’t see that coming) and Freeman to act warm and cuddly amid it all.

It’s just plain old sad—not in the warm, fuzzy, sentimental way that Hallström intends, but rather in the what-a-waste-of-talent way. With this much skill involved, An Unfinished Life should have been a contender.

An Unfinished Life opens Friday, Sept. 23

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