The wry tone of "All Is Bright," a sardonic, smart screwball comedy that teams Paul Giamatti and Paul Rudd as professional thieves trying to "go straight" by selling Christmas trees in New York City, is defined by its droll soundtrack of holiday favourite's. Familiar carols are reduced to bouncy instrumental elevator music with a hint of jazz and a smirk on its face.Dennis (Mr. Giamatti), recently released from prison after serving four years for robbery, and his partner, Rene (Mr. Rudd), a safe-cracker, live in rural Quebec. Rene didn't show up for their last escapade, abandoning Dennis, who was arrested at the scene. While Dennis was incarcerated, Rene hooked up with his wife, Therese (Amy Landecker), who told their 7-year-old daughter, Michi (Tatyana Richaud), that her father had died of cancer. Rene is still married to another woman but has promised to wed Therese as soon as his wife agrees to a divorce.How can Dennis bear to work with the man who left him holding the bag, then stole the woman for whom he still pines? As they say, beggars can't be choosers. The two are also longtime buddies, and Dennis, who is penniless, unemployed and on the brink of homelessness, is desperate. Laying a guilt trip on Rene, Dennis pressures him to take him on in the Christmas tree business. Even though Dennis is not allowed to leave the area while on parole, they load up a truck with trees and drive to New York.These oddballs couldn't be more dissimilar. Dennis, a splenetic sad sack with a hangdog expression and a temper that could explode at any second, is very smart. The maddeningly goofy Rene is a compulsive talker with a streak of the ham actor in him. When their tree-selling enterprise gets off to a slow start, he affects the accent and rustic airs of Quebecois woodsman to charm potential buyers. Just when their business seems about to go bust, the last-minute rush for trees delivers a horde of customers."All Is Bright" is the first movie in eight years directed by Phil Morrison, who made a splash with his 2005 debut, "Junebug," a bittersweet family drama set in his home state, North Carolina. On the surface, the new film has little in common with "Junebug" except for its attention to psychological detail and its fondness for offbeat characters and respect for actors.With its affection for downscale characters who dart in and out of the men's lives, "All Is Bright" has an openhandedness reminiscent of a Preston Sturges film. The screenplay, by Melissa James Gibson, a playwright who is a story editor of the TV series "The Americans," is devoid of laugh-out-loud jokes, but it has a continuing thread of bittersweet humour as Dennis and Rene interact with people in the neighbourhood, many of whom are struggling.The most endearing character, Olga (Sally Hawkins, in a scene-stealing role), is the tough-tender Russian maid and house sitter for a pair of well-to-do dentists who are out of town. Olga befriends Dennis after she becomes his first customer, and he delivers and helps her install her tree. She doesn't seem to mind that his casual, compulsive thievery leads him to pocket expensive items from the dentists' well-appointed apartment.Olga plays the piano, as does Dennis's daughter. Dennis's decision to steal a piano for Michi is the story's paradoxical moral fulcrum. His reversion to criminality enables a genuinely selfless act.

I must say for a comedy starring Paul Rudd and Paul Giamatti, then "All Is Bright" was somewhat of a disappointment if you look at the movie from a comedy aspect. Why? Well, because there was almost no comedy here. This was more a drama with some elements of pseudo-comedy thrown into it.The story is about Dennis (played by Paul Giamatti) who is released from prison, only to find his wife Therese (played by Amy Landecker) having told their daughter that he is dead. And to make matters worse, she is to marry his former partner in crime Rene (played by Paul Rudd). Down on his luck and low on cash, Dennis have to bite the sour apple and go with Rene to New York City to sell Christmas trees.Now, as much as the story is without comedy that will make you laugh, then the movie is equally stacked with an interesting story that was really well acted by the lead actors, and they really carried the movie quite nicely.The characters in the movie were well carved out, with lots of depth, personality and characteristics, as odd as they may be. But with the talent of Rudd and Giamatti, then the audience are introduced to two very different characters, that are each individually very likable for better or worse. And together on the screen, their chemistry is just magnificent."All Is Bright" is well worth a watch if you enjoy a movie that is something out of the ordinary.

I normally love the two male leads...but this film seemed a labor of pain and suspending disbelief.Here we have two former partners in crime, one who steals the other's wife while he's in prison, yet they're still pals and team up for a truck trip from Canada to sell Christmas trees in New York. Paul Giamatti is the cuckolded pal who never lets Paul Rudd forget what he did during fits of overacting.On top of this, these two petty criminals haven't the sense to bank their sales each day until the obvious happens and to get something to show for their work they wind up pulling a Laurel and Hardy style burglary in New York without getting caught. And they do this with the assistance of a wealthy and cultured Russian woman who takes a liking to the crude and filthy Giamatti character.In the end, Rudd ends up with Giamattis wife and child, while Giamatti gets nothing...and that's the way you feel at the end of All is Bright. Have a nice day, hopefully brighter and more intelligent than this film.

what an startling film this is. delicate, crystalline, complicated, pure. there are four motifs repeated here... smoking, theft, poverty, and humanity. the first three are agonies. they twist us, they defile us, they make us smaller and darker and less able to realize ourselves and to see each other. the fourth is our only hope, and surprisingly, it is not out of reach. even now, even here. i guess the original title of this movie was Almost Christmas, and now All Is Bright, but i would have called it that... Even Now, Even Here. the writer, Melissa James Gibson, must be a remarkable person, well traveled if not in the world then in her head and heart. she gives us fresh tasty layers of french Canadian, (tabarac!), and a little Inuit and black African and such a wonderfully precise, carved and sculpted Russian individual that i found my inner voice speaking in her hauntingly wrong accent for days after meeting her. "You must have Russian blood." Sally Hawkins says ruefully, sadly. "Why?" Paul Giamatti asks, "Because you do what you must." some movies leave you wanting to see more of the movie, this one left me wanting it to not be a movie at all. i wanted to meet and to continue to be with these people. i still wonder and worry about them, even now. that these big stars would find this script attractive is impressive and gives me hope because surely there is no box office here. turn away ye tweens in your millions, there are no lusting vampires here. and nothing is 3D. there is one gun in the movie, but it needs to be there and it only exists to break hearts, it isn't sexy just as real guns never are. i had forgotten what a precise and life affirming artist Sally Hawkins is since Happy Go Lucky years ago. a poet also needs to be a surgeon, and this actress whose characters are so much like poems would no more betray a gesture or slaughter a syllable than a surgeon might misplace a vein. just to see her work again is worth the time. i remember one scene... a man is trying to talk another man into doing a burglary and when he resists, he grabs a saw and holds it against his friend's throat. whats next? karate chop? car chase? CGI zombies with Mr Pitt in dull pursuit? no. the threatened man reaches over and touches his friend's face. he gets it. he feels the humanity in himself and the other, and he knows the desperation and the cause. that's a good thing. straight men should be able to touch each others face if the need arises, but how often are we allowed to in real life, much less in film? the peevish puny pecking side of me wants to criticize when the movie is unreal, i am too big a fan of realness, i confess. like the absurdity that a Steinway grand piano is a portable gift that plays well in the snow, or that a dingy disloyal woman who sits on her front steps and smokes would have hair that anyone would want to smell. and that loud and glaring final song, although pretty enough, makes us feel that we are being preached at under a neon sign instead of just simply being shared with, which is all we ever wanted. but these are small complaints when all i really come away with is gratitude for amazingly intelligent work. if you have no soul or mind, or want to abandon yours, go see Now You See Me. if you want to spend real time with our flawed and fragile human mirrors, artfully portrayed, see this. jusboutded/salon/blog