"Grace is gone"

I watched him become that famous guy with the radio, standing below a girl's window, and then morph into a homicidal but cool professional hitman attending his high school reunion, and change yet again into a self-absorbed, music-obsessed fellow in Chicago. John Cusack did good in smart and funny films like "Say Anything," "Grosse Pointe Blank," and "High Fidelity" but went to waste in throwaway rom-coms like "America's Sweethearts" and "Serendipity." Now, he's a fair bit older, pudgier, but once again marvelously watchable in "Grace is Gone," which won the Audience Award for Drama at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

The trailer alone undid me. And then there's the surprisingly poignant score by Clint Eastwood, who I thought had already done everything from acting to producing to directing. While this may be his first full-length score, it turns out he's had writing credits on several soundtracks since 1986.

Bespectacled and frumpy, Cusack is a husband and a father dealing with the loss of his wife who's been killed in action far from home - specifically, Iraq. The film is about his struggle to tell his daughters that their beloved mother is dead. Cusack is entirely convincing in his frailty, strength, pain, and devotion. See why in the trailer below.