But to end this far from complete survey on a more sanguine note, let me tell you about Nobody's Fool, a modest movie that nevertheless gets to the root of truth about so-called ordinary people, showing them in their authentic complexity, their flavorous quirkiness.

As Robert Benton has directed his own adaptation of Richard Russo's novel, this is the story of Sully, an ornery but decent aging construction worker in an Upstate New York town, who long ago ran out on his family ...