Grace is Gone presents its audience with an unimaginably painful situation - the death of a wife and mother in Iraq and the way the shy father left behind is forced to deal with telling his two young daughters. John Cusack plays Stanley Phillips, the quiet, reserved husband of soldier Grace Phillips and the father of two young girls, 12-year-old Heidi (Shelan O'Keefe) and 8-year-old Dawn (Gracie Bednarczyk). Stanley is the kind of mild-mannered guy who doesn't believe in expressing himself too openly, which makes the news he has to share with his daughters something that he simply can't bring himself to do. So, in an effort to delay the inevitable, he takes his children on a road trip. Stanley, Heidi, and Dawn travel the country, headed to an amusement park, as the spectre of the news that will eventually have to be shared lingers like another passenger in the car.

The script by director James C. Strouse could easily be read as an allegory for the way our country is dealing with the human toll in Iraq (denial), but the film tries to be more (or maybe less) than another anti-Iraq movie. Strouse instead chooses to focus on a character study of a man stuck in the worst kind of denial, that which will forever impact the lives of his children. Stanley's decision is only once given any sort of criticism by the film itself, through the eyes of his brother John (Allesandro Nivola), and it's easily the best scene in the movie, one of the few times it actually comes to life. The rest of the film is so drab that it practically disappears, and the whole project is hampered by the average audience member's likely reaction that what Stanley is doing is borderline reprehensible. Having a character deny his children the appropriate time to grieve their mother is a risky move by a screenwriter, and Strouse never quite puts us in Stanley's shoes or allows us access to his thought process. To write a film about a character who makes the decision that Stanley makes, a screenwriter doesn't need to make the audience agree with his choice, but we need to understand why he made it and Grace is Gone never quite gets that across. The desire to pull Stanley aside and slap some sense into him continually hampers the dramatic arc of the story.

All of the flaws of Grace is Gone have nothing to do with John Cusack, who took a long-expected leap forward this year with this role and his underrated one-man show in 1408. Cusack has had untapped dramatic potential as far back as Say Anything, and Grace is Gone represents his best work to date. He elevates what could have been a far-worse, melodramatic TV movie of the week into something that almost works. It's what's around him that lets him down.

The script flaws of Grace is Gone are amplified by pedestrian direction and a dull, drab visual palate. Strouse tries to play it safe by largely avoiding the serious issues at play by not being pro- or anti-anything - even regarding Stanley's decision - but that attitude drains the film of all of the life it may have had if it actually took a risk once and a while. Everything from the color choices to Clint Eastwood's score comes across as dispassionate and bottled up, kind of like Stanley himself, making for a grueling, depressing experience. Even the final, inevitable deed is covered up and repressed by the filmmakers. To put the audience through something as drab as Grace is Gone, you need to give them some sort of emotionally cathartic pay-off or, at least, make some sort of commentary about the human condition. Grace is Gone never even aspires to do that. It avoids all deeper issues inherent to its subject matter, choosing instead to simply be a slice of depressing life that you won't want to take.