and Sam Rockwell -- and how they did not know how to communicate honestly with him . His children were not living the lives he had fantasized for them . `` It 's easier not to face up to the truth , '' Jones said . Audiences emerged from preview screenings thinking about their own parents or children , Jones said . `` People are coming out of the movie , almost without exception , saying ` I 've got to ring my mom , I 've got to ring my dad , ' '' Jones said . The strongest reactions have come from people between 24 and 35 , many of whom told Jones he 's `` scratched a nerve , '' he said . `` They were saying ` That 's me . That 's my dad . Those are my parents . ' '' `` Most people have got regrets , '' he said . `` When they leave their parents , everyone looks back and thinks , ' I should have invited them on holiday with us that time or I should have made it that weekend or I should have just called them more often
Los Angeles , California -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- If you stared at empty seats around your Thanksgiving dinner table , Robert DeNiro 's newest film could help . Parents who want their kids home for Christmas may do well by persuading them to see `` Everybody 's Fine , '' which opens next Friday in U.S. theaters . `` I 'm hoping it might catch the moment , and it might catch the Christmas spirit and the Thanksgiving spirit , '' director-writer Kirk Jones told CNN over coffee in Hollywood . The movie is targeted at people with parents , brothers , sisters or children , Jones said . `` Pretty much everyone , '' Jones said . `` It 's about family . '' The story centers around a cross-country journey by DeNiro 's character struggling to bring together his grown children for Christmas , several months after their mother 's death . DeNiro reveals a sensitive , aging father who imagines that `` everybody 's fine '' -- a solace for his lonely suffering . Each stop reveals how his wife had sheltered him from bad news about his kids -- played by Drew Barrymore , Kate Beckinsale