Some audiences have found Cusack's performance brave and true. Others think it as mawkish and manipulative as the film's title. Personally speaking, I was deeply touched without being quite convinced, mostly because Stanley's interactions with his older daughter, played by an incandescent newcomer named Shélan O'Keefe, have the honest, inarticulate emotion the rest of the film reaches for.
The gimmick of "Grace Is Gone" - and it is a gimmick - is that Stanley can't bring himself to tell his girls, 12-year-old Heidi (O'Keefe) and 9-year-old Dawn (Gracie Bednarczyk), that their mother is dead. To do so would open the entire can of worms: His guilt that his wife is serving rather than he, his belief that this war is righteous and good.
Instead, Stanley whisks the girls out of school and into the minivan, chattering with nervous high spirits as they head for the family's favorite Florida amusement park. The young and uncomplicated Dawn is delighted with the unexpected vacation. Heidi, the wise elder kid, senses something's up.
It's that old indie standby the road movie, this time pregnant with resentments and unbearable sadness. "Little Miss Mudslide," in other words, with a muted (and quite lovely) score by Clint Eastwood rather than a clutch of playlist-ready alterna-hits. Why would you watch such a thing? Partly because writer-director James C. Strouse treats the material honestly even at its most calculated, and mostly because the relationship between Stanley and his oldest daughter has the hard, observant ring of truth.
This is O'Keefe's first film, and her performance has its self-conscious moments, but I think she'll be around for a while. Heidi is one of those quiet, absorptive kids who rebel by learning as much as they can, on the sly if necessary. We first see her watching CNN for news of the war, switching it off hastily when Stanley comes home from work. (He doesn't want her to know. Actually, he doesn't want her to think.)
