Yet writer-director Mike Binder's examination of the ups and downs -- mostly downs -- of a wife and mother abandoned by her husband locates genuine humor in her pain. If Binder had chosen an actress other than Joan Allen to play the angry woman, who knows how "The Upside of Anger" would have turned out. [...] Allen turns the character into a tour de force that unleashes an unexpected comedy about compassion and self-loathing.

Subscribe to the Hollywood Reporter and see the entertainment industry from its best angle: the inside looking out. Complete access to real-time news and exclusive analysis that goes behind the scenes from film to television, home video to digital media.

   Subscribe now.