BEFORE: OK, I'm finally off revenge-action movies, I think. There's no way this one can turn into that kind of plot, unless there's a BIG twist halfway through. Zoe Saldana carries over from "Colombiana".
Well, it finally happened, after two years of avoiding COVID, of staying home, getting vaccinated and boosted and then making our way out into public life again, my wife and I both tested positive for COVID-19, somehow. We did everything right, and there's no telling how or when we caught it - I've been feeling sick for over a week, but I tested negative with a home test a few days ago. I've been working public events at a college's movie theater, though - only one day did I feel I was too sick to get out of bed, and that was over a week ago. My wife went out last night to a co-worker's funeral, and then out to a bar afterwards, so really, there's no telling if I caught it first and gave it to her, or she caught it and gave it to me, or we each caught COVID at the same time, but from two different sources.
Either way, we're now quarantined together for the next few days, so this pandemic thing's not over yet, not at our house. BUT, at least I get to catch up on some TV and also my now-cleared work schedule shouldn't prevent me from staying current on movies, either. So, there's that. But how embarrassing, really, to have avoided COVID-19 for two solid years, and then get it now?
THE PLOT: A father struggling with bipolar disorder tries to win back his wife by attempting to take full responsibility of their two young, spirited daughters, who don't make the overwhelming task any easier.
AFTER: This is the sort of film that feels like it just HAS to be autobiographical, because it's so specific about the father's mental condition, and the weird things that he did, and the mother's decision to get her MBA in exactly 18 months, which forces her to spend time away from the rest of the family. So, surely this must have happened to somebody, right?
My instincts are spot on, because writer/director Maya Forbes grew up in a family just like this one, where her mother was African-American and got a scholarship to Columbia Business School, and had to spend most of her week in New York, and travel back to the Boston area each weekend. Only, was it every weekend, because sometimes the characters here would say, "OK, see you in 12 days" and that sounds a lot more like every OTHER weekend. N.P. for sure.
And Maya's father was similarly the caregiver for her and her younger sister, and he had bipolar disorder - I figure that the title of the film has something to do with his condition, but the exact connection between polar bears and bipolar disorder is quite maddeningly never explained. Was this a corruption of the kids trying to understand what "bipolar" means? Who's the polar bear? Explain, please.
Maya's daughter also plays the fictionalized version of her younger self, and yeah, I guess this is OK but it also feels just way too convenient, like when Judd Apatow casts his daughters in his films, maybe it makes for a fun family project and maybe it's a bonding exercise, or they might have a better chance of understanding the characters if there's a family connection between the director and the actor, but can you tell me 100% that the BEST possible actor then got cast as the daughter? Or was it just the most easily available one? For that matter, who takes their rough upbringing experiences, all those times that their father embarrassed them in public, and spins that mud into gold for the sake of a screenplay? It's awfully enterprising, sure, but it's also quite forward and self-aggrandizing, as if to say, "Well I just KNOW everybody out there will be interested in learning about my fascinating but difficult childhood." Get over yourself, seriously.
Hey, I had this terrible ingrown toenail one time and I was often embarassed about playing sports in gym class, maybe there's a screenplay there, right? Nah, maybe you'd better just keep that to yourself. Yeah, times were tough but you still managed to get into Harvard, so maybe just save your story about your struggles.
The fictional Stuart family is supposedly descended from a wealthy Boston family (Yeah, she's from THAT Forbes family.) but they can't access any of the money because the father's grandmother controls the family trust. NITPICK POINT: Cam Stuart drives his daughters past his old family house, which he claims is one of the biggest mansions on Beacon Hill - but it's clearly out in the suburbs, and Beacon Hill is a very busy street in the middle of the city of Boston, so that house can't possibly be where he says it is. (I'm right again, there's some archive footage of Boston, but most of this film was shot in Providence, RI.)
And the overall problem with making this family's problems SO specific is that they tend not to apply to anyone else, so what lessons am I supposed to learn about life here, how to wheedle your kids into a private prep school? Doesn't help me. How to string your spouse along and make him think you're getting back together someday, just so he'll raise the kids alone while you get your degree? That hardly seems fair. Clearly their mother never intended to get back into a loving relationship with their father, but hey, she got her MBA degree and founded an investment firm, which paid for that private school - so sure, I guess that makes everything OK? Nah.
Well, at least I'm getting CLOSER to appropriate programming for Mother's Day. The philosophy of a mother putting her needs first so she can get a degree, and a better job down the road to provide for her kids - eh, it's ALMOST heartwarming. But it still seems like it goes against some rule of parenting that says the kids' needs should come first, and foremost. Here they do, but they also don't - like, don't these kids miss their mother, five days out of seven?
Also starring Mark Ruffalo (last seen in "The Adam Project"), Imogene Wolodarsky, Ashley Aufderheide (last seen in "Going in Style"), Keir Dullea (last seen in "Fahrenheit 451" (2018)), Beth Dixon, Muriel Gould, Paul Elias, Nekhebet Kum Juch, Manoah Angelo, Muriel Gould, Tod Randolph, Georgia Lyman, Chris Papavasiliou, Wally Wolodarsky (last seen in "The French Dispatch").
RATING: 4 out of 10 doses of lithium (not taken)
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