Ben (Hoffman) and Jojo (Sarandon) have lost their daughter in a random act of violence. They have living with them at their house, their daughter's fiance Joe, (Gyllenhaal). The movie shows how the family is dealing with the griefing, and with each other, as they are waiting for the trial for the man who shot the daughter. The movie appeared to be set in the early 70's but, the time period didn't really have a great significance to the story. The story is rather depressing and dark, and the events of the movie didn't strike me as a very realistic. I think I should have skipped this one.<br /><br />** spoilers follow **<br /><br />I found it difficult to imagine that after the death of his fiance, Joe, would continue to live with his fiance's parents. There didn't seem to be any real reason for it. In fact when another character in the movie asks him why he does live there, he doesn't answer. I was curious myself. Joe meets another girl in town, Bertie (Pompeo, who looks like Rene Zellweger's younger sister) and at first she is funny, and charming, but as soon as they start to fall in love with each other she becomes dark and depressed. There is a ridiculous scene where the two love birds meet secretly and both looked depressed. For most of the movie they were depressed when they were together, dispite apprently liking one another. In this town Joe seems to be the only available man, and has the attention of many other young attractive women. When Bertie asks him "why me?" There isn't an answer. I was curious myself what the attraction was between the two. The mother Jojo, is critical of everyone, doesn't like people that express their sympathy over her loss, and doesn't like people that don't. The father Ben, seemed anxious to include Joe in his business, despite the fact Joe was obviously not interested. He even gives Joe an important job of trying to see if the bar where Bertie works would be interested in selling. However, Joe betrays the trust of the man he is working with, living with, and was engaged to the daughter of, and instead just goes over to the bar to visit Bertie. Not very realistic. But even more unrealistic, Ben doesn't seem terribly upset when he finds out. Finally we get to the trial, where Ben goes on the stand to get sympathy for the victim, his former fiance. But, of course he blows the entire scenereo having a little break down of sorts on the stand and creating more sympathy for the killer than the victim. Not very realistic. But, what a shock, the parents of the murdered girl seem to like Joe much better after he weakend the case, it was almost like, they really appreciated seeing the case weakend, not very realistic.