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Things Done, Changed

Ryan Gosling has made a career out of playing hyper-intellectual, disaffected, borderline psychotics (see "Lars and the Real Girl", "Stay", "The Believer"). Kirsten Dunst has made a career out of playing, well, Kirsten Dunst (see... everything she's in). They're both very good at it. And they can both be very engaging given the right material. They're well matched in "All Good Things", a docudrama about New York's still-unsolved Durst missing persons case from director Andrew Jarecki. Mr. Jarecki previously tackled another New York-based story in 2003's "Capturing the Friedmans", a superlative documentary about a family torn apart by a shocking secret. So "All Good Things" has a lot going for it. It's never dull, but it also doesn't leave much of an impression.

It's a shame since the facts of the Durst case are startling - and have been fodder for several documentaries over the years. The film begins in 1971 with Durst avatar David Marks (the names have been changed to protect the currently innocent) being groomed to taken on his family business. The Marks family owns a significant amount of land in Times Square. David is seen hopping from porn shop to motel to peep-show collecting payouts from local tenants, all the while dreading this prescribed life. When he meets-cute with a pretty young aspiring med student, Katie (Ms. Dunst), David leaves it all behind. The couple moves to Vermont to open a small health food shop (the film takes its title from the name of the store).

Naturally, all does not go well - especially when you consider the patriarch of the family is played by Frank Langella, in fine form. Soon, Katie starts to uncover David's troubling history. His mother died violently before his eyes, and he has a tendency to become withdrawn and talk to himself. He's also, to put it mildly, not the most supportive husband. It's all leading up to Katie's disappearance and a series of ever more bizarre events involving cross-dressing and nosy neighbors.

With "Freidmans", Mr. Jarecki lucked out. He set out to create a documentary about New York birthday clowns but ended up uncovering a fascinating trove of family dysfunction. With "All Good Things" - working from a script by first-timers Marcus Hinchey, Marc Smerling - he tries to have it both ways. He presents the story as a dramatization of true events, but the ending becomes a series of noncommittal half-scenes intercut with present-day testimony. Fact-based dramas are tough enough, but when the facts of the story are still in question they become even more difficult. Look at "Auto Focus", "Lonely Hearts" and, most notoriously, "JFK" for a few good examples.

Likewise, Mr. Gosling is a fine actor, but David remains a cypher. He's a series of sociopathic tics ranging from mildly annoying to full-on Norman Bates. It's said that the real-life Robert Durst felt "All Good Things" was a fair portrayal of the events of his life. Depending on what Mr. Jarecki was going for, that may not be a good thing.