The Upside of Anger Mike Binder proved to be a deft chronicler of marital mores in his HBO series The Mind of the Married Man. In The Upside of Anger he unravels the aftermath of a broken marriage. At the start of the story, Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) learns that her husband has disappeared; apparently he's run off with his secretary, leaving her to raise their four daughters on her own. This disruption drives her crazy. She doesn't soldier on bravely like the heroine of An Unmarried Woman or numerous uplifting TV movies about divorce. She starts drinking heavily and takes out her anger on her helpless daughters. At times the character is infuriating, but Allen is always riveting to watch. She finds the humor as well as the fierce pain in this mad housewife's disintegration. The movie has some obvious echoes of Terms of Endearment, with Allen offering an original variation on Shirley MacLaine's high-strung matriarch, and Kevin Costner does a good job in the Jack Nicholson role--a has-been athlete who's living in the neighborhood. Costner isn't afraid to look a bit paunchy and disheveled. In his shambling, low-key way, he provides a nice balance to the tightly wound Allen; they make a convincing and appealing middle-aged couple. Four of our best young actresses--Evan Rachel Wood, Erika Christensen, Keri Russell and Alicia Witt--play the daughters, and Binder has written an amusing role for himself as the lecherous manager of the radio station where Costner works. The movie's denouement is not entirely satisfying. Some of the last-minute plot developments leave too many unanswered questions, and it's hard to buy the upbeat finale after such a scathing portrayal of a family in disarray. Nevertheless, the movie's caustic barbs compensate for its occasional platitudes, and Allen delivers a marvelous performance that deserves to be remembered in next year's Oscar derby. --Stephen Farber

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