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" In the movie Everybody&amp;#039;s Fine, which opens today, Robert De Niro plays a widower who travels the country by bus and train, trying to reconnect with his grown children. He appears in just about every frame of the film, and he works his ass off. There&amp;#039;s greatness in this performance. The film itself toys with your heart and punches you in the stomach and jerks you from laughter to blubbering like a child. Not every line of dialogue is perfect, but the story is about people you know and things that really happen and all the problems and love and confusion and regret and joy that every family knows.  Say what you will about De Niro&amp;#039;s body of work in the last decade, but he crushes this one. The only surprising thing about this, I suppose, is that the director, Kirk Jones, a) is English and has never spent much time in the States, b) has directed only two other films, and c) tells me was terrified of De Niro. Jones is sweet and affable \u2014 a family man, and a polite one. And somehow he corralled four huge personalities into giving four astonishing performances \u2014 Frank&amp;#039;s children are played by Sam Rockwell, the most underappreciated actor of his generation; Kate Beckinsale (&amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s one of the funniest, smartest, and actually naughtiest women I know,&amp;quot; Jones says. &amp;quot;Sam Rockwell has been around a bit and he was shocked at her language and her sense of humor&amp;quot;); and Drew Barrymore, who&amp;#039;s been famous since before she was born. He did have De Niro&amp;#039;s very presence working in his favor, however. &amp;quot;No one ever said this, but I suspect that with De Niro on set, everyone else fell into shape a bit more,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Who would dream of having a fit \u2014 a screaming tantrum \u2014 on set with Robert De Niro there watching them?&amp;quot; But Jones&amp;#039;s steady control of this film \u2014 which he also wrote, based on the 1990 Italian film Stanno Tutti Bene \u2014 is undeniable, and he says the foundation of his own confidence was developing a strategy for directing his biggest star. He revealed it over coffee in the lobby of his hotel, the morning of the movie&amp;#039;s New York City premiere: &amp;quot;There was a late-night shoot, and someone from his team said, &amp;#039;Can he maybe go early? He&amp;#039;s been up since five.&amp;#039; And it was a really long day. He&amp;#039;s such a busy guy, if we have a night shoot, instead of lying in until ten, eleven o&amp;#039;clock, getting up, relaxing, and then coming in for the shoot at 4 P.M., he&amp;#039;s still up at 5 A.M., he&amp;#039;s still in the gym, he&amp;#039;s doing all of his other business, and then he turns up at 4 P.M. for a shoot that&amp;#039;s supposed to go till 2 or 3 A.M. So about midnight someone said, &amp;#039;Can we do it another time?&amp;#039; And I said, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m sorry, I can&amp;#039;t do that.&amp;#039; And they said, &amp;#039;Could we say that maybe he&amp;#039;ll be finished by about 1 o&amp;#039;clock, and then we&amp;#039;ll push it a bit?&amp;#039; And I said, &amp;#039;I can&amp;#039;t do that.&amp;#039; And I went up to him, and I said I&amp;#039;m really sorry \u2014 I would love to say that we&amp;#039;re going to be finished by half-twelve or 1 o&amp;#039;clock, but honestly we&amp;#039;re not. I think we&amp;#039;re going to be here till four o&amp;#039;clock in the morning, and I know you don&amp;#039;t want to hear that, but I&amp;#039;ve been honest with you so far, and I&amp;#039;m not going to lie. And he went [quietly, putting his hand on my forearm], &amp;#039;It&amp;#039;s okay.&amp;#039; And he went and had a fifteen-minute nap. I think he appreciated that honesty, instead of people being scared of him. I suspect in the past he&amp;#039;s perhaps been surrounded by people who are not honest with him, and we all know what it&amp;#039;s like, people telling you what they think you want to hear. He doesn&amp;#039;t want to exist in that world, he wants to exist in the real world. As an actor, he needs to communicate with people. That approach was my one big decision. So that was how I could handle Bob.&amp;quot; RELATED LINKS:  WHAT I&amp;#039;VE LEARNED: De Niro on Directing, Pacino, 9/11, and More  KATE BECKINSALE: Photos and an Afternoon with 2009&amp;#039;s Sexiest Woman Alive  PLUS: Everybody&amp;#039;s Fine and More Movies to See This December   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a6800/everybodys-fine-review-120409/>