Comedy tempers angst in `Upside'.(Life - Scene)

Byline: ROGER EBERT Universal Press Syndicate

Joan Allen and Kevin Costner achieve something in "The Upside of Anger" that may have been harder than co-starring in "Macbeth." They create two imperfect, alcoholic, resentful ordinary people, neighbors in the suburbs, with enough money to support themselves in the discontent to which they have become accustomed. I liked these characters precisely because they were not designed to be likable - or, more precisely, because they were likable in spite of being exasperating, unorganized, self-destructive and impervious to good advice. That would be true of most of my friends. They say the same about me.

Allen plays Terry Wolfmeyer, suburban wife and mother of four daughters ("One of them hates me and the other three are …