Review: Everybody's Fine (12A)****

Arriving unannounced in New York, he finds his artist son out of town. A visit to his daughter in Chicago discovers a scene of strained domesticity. His younger daughter, a dancer in Las Vegas, seems to have much to hide. And in Denver his other son, rather than being the orchestra conductor his mother spoke of, merely bangs the bass drum as a lowly percussionist.

In Everybody's Fine De Niro could be everybody's dad. He's an average bloke who spent too many years working for his kids to truly enjoy them. One by one his various bubbles are burst and, no matter how far he travels, there are still miles and miles of distance between father and children.

This wonderfully observed drama – reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's turn in About Schmidt but without the laughs – is about love, loss and little white lies.

Director Kirk Jones tells his story as a series of intricately interlocking vignettes in which the various siblings – Kate Beckinsale, Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell – provide superb support for De Niro. And De Niro delivers his best work in years. Frank is wholly plausible, deeply flawed and desperately out of touch and out of time.

Here is an ordinary man who reflects the worries and concerns of fathers everywhere. This is a tearjerker – honest, emotional and real. De Niro proves that he can inhabit the soul of an everyman and bring to him a tangible vulnerability.

It's a nuanced, dignified, gentle portrait of dysfunction and familial disharmony that builds to a credible and touching climax.