Mike Binder, who wrote, directed, and played a small part in The Upside of Anger, successfully pushes the boundaries of the “romantic comedy” genre. The humor takes place on a thick background of anger, despair and sadness. Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen), an elegant suburban woman with four daughters ranging between the ages of 13 to 22 suffers an all too common fate of middle-age wives: the husband just takes off from one day to the next. Terry is devasted by the thought that the father of her four children would run off with his young Swedish secretary. She becomes an alocoholic, barely managing to keep her household going. She is full of anger, letting it out on her four children and the former baseball star, now low-life, neighbor Denny (Kevin Costner). What makes this film watchable is that it frequently creates funny dialogs between the angry Terry, her headstrong children, and the Danny, who quickly has second thoughts about getting her into the sack.