Hollywood health advice pays off in the fun, fluffy ‘Upside of Anger’

Hollywood, always happy to share its wisdom, offers this advice in “The Upside of Anger”: Being mad all the time is bad for you.

On the other hand, being mad all the time is good for Joan Allen, who is a hoot as brittle Terry, who gets deserted by her husband and immediately becomes a sarcastic, judgmental drunk. The clever, facile script is not particularly strong on realistic details – I’m guessing, for instance, that a woman who hides from her family and turns her bed into a 24-hour open bar probably would cease to worry about highlighting her hair – but it does let Terry wallow in a realistic amount of hurt and sorrow, and Allen has a field day with it.

At first, “The Upside of Anger” seems willing to accommodate the ambiguity and messiness of life: Terry’s relationships with her four grown daughters are perilous and snippy. Her behavior is frequently rude and self-involved. She can’t figure out what she thinks about a neighbor (Kevin Costner, as creased and rumpled as the bottom of a hamper) who appears to have learned his uncouth romantic moves from Jack Nicholson in “Terms of Endearment.”

The early scenes suggest “Anger” has the potential to be as uniquely revealing as the brilliant “Shoot the Moon,” but it quickly becomes apparent that writer/ director Mike Binder is aiming a few notches lower – in fact, “Terms of Endearment” is about right. The script is observant and funny (Costner on bungee jumping: “The only thing I understand about that is the screaming”), but it doesn’t go much deeper than mild, making- fun-of-the-bride-at-the-back-of- the-wedding naughtiness, and it’s too eager to slide into the wrap-everything-up-neatly event that concludes the film.

But it’s mostly after you’ve watched “Anger” and are thinking about it that those objections surface (it’s hard to relate to a family that lives with luxury and without jobs). The upside is that, while you’re watching it, “The Upside of Anger” is quite a bit of fun.