Shélan O’Keefe, John Cusack and Gracie Bednarczyk in James C. Strouse's Grace is Gone; Photo Credit Chuck Hodes/ TWC 2007

From time to time, it happens, by odd chance of fate, that nearly all the critics agree on where a film stands. Such has been the case for James C. Strouse's directorial debut Grace Is Gone. Here's Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times: "Grace Is Gone is not a great movie, simply functional,..."; and, Robert Davis of Paste Magazine: "Simplicity and emotion aren’t crimes, but they require finesse and precision...Like many other people who saw the film at Sundance, I came out of the theater misty and somber, but even then it was clear that Grace is Gone had precious little to grab onto."; and, in harshest critique, Frederica Mathewes-Green of Christianity Today: "Viewers may go in thinking "Oscar," but they're likely to come out thinking "Afterschool Special." I'd like to say my opinion diverges here.

It doesn't. Despite its Sundance wins of an audience and screenwriting award, the portrait of grief, following father Stanley Phillips (John Cusack) tasked with telling his young daughters Heidi and Dawn (Shélan O'Keefe, Gracie Bednarczyk) of their mother's death in wartime Iraq, is little more than a sentimental standby for an emotionally taunt film left unmade.

When conservative-leaning and hardworking, Stanley, a supportive but buttoned-up hardware store manager and father of two, learns that his wife Grace (Dana Lynne Gilhooley), seen only in photos throughout the film, has been killed, he falls into a state of shock so severe that he can only live in his own denial. Without knowing how to communicate with his daughters, he drags the two out of school for an impulsive cross-country road trip to amusement park Enchanted Gardens. From Minnesota to Florida, the family, now only three, bond over what they'll later accept as loss.

An impromptu stop a grandparent Phillips' house also introduces brother and uncle John (Alessandro Nivola), an out of work, loudly critical and left-leaning drifter who finds out, well before the girls do, of Grace's death. In perhaps the most emotionally driven scene of the film, Stanley fights with and holds onto his brother, their embrace locked in anger and impotence and sympathy.

While Cusack and Nivola put in moving performances here, O'Keefe and Bednarczyk easily upstage both, O'Keefe's meditative Heidi drawing out a sense of emotional isolation and Bednarczyk's innocent exuberance playing in perfect foil against the bitterness of the reveal to come. Indeed, for all of Cusack's desperation, it's the tear in Bednarczyk's eye that taps the well of sadness.

With an implicit anti-war message, Grace Is Gone remains apolitical enough to cater to the entire spectrum of political sway. Yet as a glimpse of the personal within the political, it's so plodding and so quiet that it does little in the way of lasting impression for anyone, in any spectrum. Much as Todd Louiso's Love Liza did, Strouse attempts to make a compelling story out of a lack of character decision, and yet where Louiso's film, carried on the shoulders of a superb Philip Seymour Hoffman, tugs at the heart in a memorable way, Grace Is Gone succeeds only as a temporary reminder that in war, it's easy to get broken.

For more information on the film visit www.graceisgone-themovie.com.