The Upside of Anger

Terry (Joan Allen) and her daughters, with Denny (Kevin Costner), attend a funeral. Her daughter Popeye thinks of Terry as an angry and bitter woman and not pleasant to be around. About three years earlier, a flashback reveals, Terry had told her daughters that she thought their father, Grey (Danny Webb), had left the family to be with his former secretary in Sweden. Terry says that both went missing around the same time. Terry continues to drink heavily to cope with her anger and pain, which causes her daughters to resent her. After sharing the news with neighbor Denny, a retired baseball player turned radio talk show host and fellow alcoholic, Terry progressively grows close to the man, with whom she eventually begins an intimate relationship. Denny is a laid-back person & gets along well with the girls Andy (Erika Christensen), Lavender "Popeye" Wolfmeyer (Evan Rachel Wood), Emily (Keri Russell) & Hadley (Alicia Witt). Denny is sponsoring a real estate development project in the neighborhood by putting together land parcels from various properties. He hopes to earn a free lot out of the deal for himself. Hadley leaves for college. Denny finds Andy looking at job ads in the local newspaper. She says that she needs to work as she is not going to college. Andy aims to be a reporter. Keen to help where he can, Denny helps Andy, one of Terry's daughters, to become a production assistant at the radio station where he works, where she meets and starts a relationship with Adam "Shep" Goodman (Mike Binder), Denny's producer, a questionable character in his 40s. Andy and Shep begin a relationship which disgusts and angers Terry. Terry wants Andy to join college and finish her education. She is angry when she takes the job as Denny's production assistant. Andy retorts that she had discussed this with Grey, but he had asked her to wait before she discussed the matter with Terry. Terry is livid and is adamant that Andy is going to college. Terry is perennially drunk & never misses an opportunity to trash Grey in front of her daughters. In a fit of rage, Terry takes all the photos that had Grey in them, and all of Gery's clothes and his other belongings and throws them out in the garbage. Meanwhile Popeye, who is attending a private high school, finds herself attracted to a classmate Gorden (Dane Christensen), whose attention she fails to grab even after clearly declaring her interest to him (the classmate purports to be gay). They instead become close friends, bonding over their respective broken homes. Terry calls Denny and wants to know if she is another notch on his belt or if he is looking to score with her. Denny is confused and cannot respond. Terry tells him that she wants to have sex with Denny & even comes over to his place. Denny freaks out & runs away before Terry arrives. Finally, Denny gets the courage to come over to Terry's to have sex. Terry spends time getting ready for Denny, but then has a panic attack and tries to run away. Denny intercepts Terry's car in the driveway and tells her that he dials her number 10 times a day and hands up. Emily's original wishes to attend a performing arts school to study dancing are superseded by her mother's request that she pursue university studies, which she starts at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Emily is livid that Terry cannot appreciate her dream is not proud of Emily for pursuing her own path. Hadley, for her part, announces immediately following her graduation that she is engaged to her boyfriend David (Tom Harper) of three years, and pregnant. Terry reacts with anger that Hadley had not told her sooner or ever bothered to introduce her to David, leading to an embarrassing drunken scene at a lunch with David's parents. Hadley retorts that she knew Terry would judge David and this is why she kept Terry away from her personal life. Andy & Shep start having sex with each other in Andy's room & one day Terry finds them both in bed & is utterly anguished. At Hadley's wedding Terry smacks Shep when he tries to have a conversation with her. Shep retorts by saying that he would rather have a relationship with a young girl as they are nice and not some angry old bat like Terry. Emily falls sick during college at Ann Arbor. For a while it looks like cancer but turns out some stress related aggravation. She returns home to recover and, after a night at the ballet with the entire family, Terry appears to accept Emily's desire to pursue dance. Meanwhile, Andy does well at her radio station job and soon outgrows her relationship with Shep. Andy dumps Shep & wants to move on with her life. When young Popeye asks Denny what his long-term intentions are concerning his relationship with her mother, Denny decides to broach the subject with Terry, only to be confronted by anger and accusations that he is trying to push her into a marriage for which she feels unready. Weary and tired of Terry's ever-shifting moods, Denny storms out of her house. After a brief separation, Terry finally acknowledges the depth of her feelings for him, and they reunite. Hadley falls pregnant again. When a real estate deal involving both Denny and Terry finally goes through, construction begins in the area surrounding their homes and, when a worker accidentally uncovers a well, Grey Wolfmeyer's body is found, revealing in fact that he had never abandoned his family. Rather, he had accidentally fallen in the well and drowned. Because Grey's secretary had abruptly returned to Sweden at the same time he disappeared, Terry believed he had run away with her. As the story returns to the initial scene, the Wolfmeyers and Denny, now part of the family, leave Grey's funeral to reveal that Terry, while saddened and grieving, is coming to terms with her own and her daughters' life choices and, finally, finding some inner peace.