BEFORE: The chain has seen fit to throw another film about a father into late April - that's three in the last week, meaning that this week COULD have, maybe SHOULD have, been programmed into June, the home of Father's Day. Sure, films about fathers are all over the place, and I've got a little separate list of them that did NOT include "One Battle After Another" or "Knox Goes Away". If I had known this week would have been so father-centric, I might have worked harder to find another way to get from, say, "Honk for Jesus" to tomorrow's film, saving this little part of the chain for later, June would have been great. But you know, there's a chance that I would not have been able to link to it then, plus I was in such a rush to watch the film that won Best Picture, nothing else really mattered. Look, if it turns out I can't find any appropriate material for Fathers Day, then I'll just look back on what I've already watched this year, and say, "Well, at least I had the topic covered, even if I didn't hit the holiday spot on." But again, films about fathers are all over the place, surely something else will pop up at the right time.
Michael Keaton carries over from "Knox Goes Away".
THE PLOT: Andy Goodrich's life is upended when his wife enters a rehab program, leaving him on his own with their young kids. Goodrich leans on Grace, his daughter from his first marriage, as he ultimately evolves into the father she never had.
AFTER: We're ushered in to Andy Goodrich's life at a time of great turmoil, his second (and current) wife calls him from a rehab facility where she's just checked herself in, and her addiction comes as something of a shock to Goodrich, he hadn't noticed that she was overworked and strung out and needed to take pills to go to sleep, and then other pills to stay awake during the day, in addition to being tired all the time because she was taking care of their twins, and just maybe he'd been spending just a bit too much time running his art gallery, because he didn't even notice that his wife wasn't sleeping next to him. Oh, and in addition to checking into rehab, his wife wants to check out of their marriage. Goodrich drives to the rehab facility, but of course he's unable to visit her, and then he's got to rush back because there's nobody to pick the kids up from school. He's also late in getting them to school the next day, because he didn't even know somebody had to pack lunches for them. Do you get the feeling that this guy's been a little out of touch?
He also can't seem to find a way to tell his kids what "rehab" is, so he makes up a story about his wife spending time with her mother in St. Louis. I'm sure there will be no repercussions over him lying to his own kids, right? Suddenly Goodrich has to learn how to be a father, with only the help from their nanny, who came straight from the Israeli military - so he also enlists the help of Grace, his adult daughter from his first marriage, but she's eight months pregnant and also very resentful that her younger half-siblings are getting the attention from their father that SHE never got when she was a child. Oh, there will be something to unpack there, eventually. Andy's only friend seems to be Terry, the single father of his kids' classmate, who also can't seem to get a kid to school on time, and he's a part-time actor whose husband left HIM three years ago. Everybody's got some issues, it seems.
Meanwhile Goodrich's art gallery has fallen on tough times, their artists aren't selling enough paintings to bring in enough revenue to off-set rising rents and labor costs. Yeah, I worked for an animation studio like that, the owner just kept getting into more and more debt from making films and refused to get a proper agent, so that meant we were constantly struggling to sell more signed art and the schemes to raise money were getting wackier and wackier, like I sold $11,000 worth of animation art to a French museum, it took an extra month for the money to arrive, so when it finally did, it was all spent in three days just to pay enough bills to stay in business another month, that's when I knew the writing was on the wall. So I understand the position Goodrich is in here, he makes a desperate play by befriending the daughter of an artist who has recently died, to try to get exclusive rights to her mother's paintings, as we know an artist's work is likely to go up in value after their death.
Goodrich has a lot to do in a short period of time, and to do it all, he kind of has to become a different sort of person than he's been in the past - to repair the relationship with his pregnant daughter, save his business and take care of his kids, he's got to actually, you know, CARE and start paying attention to what he's maybe been doing wrong, it's time to give a shit. It's time to realize that the world doesn't necessarily revolve around HIM, and it's time to maybe sacrifice a few things before everything in his life is completely gone or past saving - and even then, things may not work out, but he's got to try. Or learn the art of letting go, that would be another way to deal with the inevitable failure of all things. Maybe both skills are going to be necessary here, try to fix what can be fixed and learn to let go of the things that can't.
He keeps promising things to his daughter, they'll go out for ice cream and talk or he'll take her to her last pre-natal exam, but things keep coming up, and bottom line, he keeps missing those chances to help her out. I don't know, maybe try using a calendar? Maybe try an app that will give you alerts about your appointments or the places that you said you'd be? It's not hard for most people, but Goodrich has a form of "artist brain" where he can sort of run his business, but he can't run his own personal life, not without several assistants. So yeah, it all comes to a head when Grace chews him out for not being there for her, both in the present and really, for her whole life. Perhaps Goodrich has a chance to be a better grandfather than he was as a father, I know I saw that happen with my own dad. Well, when you have kids you're always working, and therefore always tired, I get it - but when you're a grandfather, you're more likely to be retired and have some extra time on your hands.
This explains why Goodrich doesn't quite get along with his son-in-law, Pete. Grace chose to be with someone completely unlike her father - dependable, in other words. But at least Goodrich is aware of his faults now, and he's trying to do better. But his art gallery might be beyond saving, and perhaps his second marriage, too, even after Naomi finishes her 90 days in rehab.
Everyone is way too entitled these days, and this film showcases a lot of people like that. I think just a few generations ago kids were working in factories or mines and there was a Depression going on, and then somebody said that was a bad idea, kids shouldn't be working in factories and mines, at least not until they're 16, and by then World War II ended and things were "great" but also somehow the pendulum swung maybe a bit too far in the other direction. So now we have this generation Z or Gen Alpha or whatever, and they're completely used to getting whatever they want. Cel phones, computers, and ChatGPT and AI have made it so they don't even have to do homework if they can just Google everything they need to know. And they all have peanut allergies or need to be gluten-free and this enables an entire culture of super-picky eaters, if their lunchbox doesn't include 3-inch diameter cucumber slices with the centers removed then they just can't deal with anything that day.
These kids grow into adults who will BAIL on a relationship if it's not 100% perfect and meeting their outrageous expectations in every way. Just saying. If you can't choke down a lunch that isn't 100% what you wanted it to be, then you can't work a difficult job or navigate a troubled relationship, and you're going to spend your whole life running away from things that you deem too tough to handle. I'm sorry, but life is struggle and life is dealing with the hard things sometimes and you're going to have to get a job and make some money and it's NOT going to be easy. Look, I don't know if this is an L.A. thing or a rich person thing, but everybody's got to come together and use what we used to call "tough love" and STOP babying their kids, because not everything is going to go their way down the road, and they need to be prepared for that.
Directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer (director of "Home Again")
Also starring Mila Kunis (last seen in "Luckiest Girl Alive"), Carmen Ejogo (last seen in "The Purge: Anarchy"), Michael Urie (last seen in "Maestro"), Kevin Pollak (last seen in "Three Christs"), Laura Benanti (last seen in "Worth"), Andie MacDowell (last seen in "Ready or Not"), Viviena Lyra Blair (last seen in "Bird Box"), Nico Hiraga (last seen in "Moxie"), Jacob Kopera, Danny Deferrari (last seen in "Oppenheimer"), Poorna Jagannathan (last seen in "The Out-Laws"), Andrew Leeds (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Kimberly Condict, Noa Fisher (las seen in "Uncut Gems"), Jessica Heller, Monique Moses, Carlos Solorzano, Chloe Troast (last seen in "Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain"), Liza Treyger (last seen in "Nope"), Lois Shih, Carlos Ragas, Sydney Miles (last seen in "Dark Waters"), Miles Anderson (last seen in "Cry Freedom"), Michael Chieffo (last seen in "The Ring Two"), Roshni Shukla, Crosby Fitzgerald, Maria Bata, Shannon Bengston, Susan Thomas Walker
RATING: 5 out of 10 deep breathing exercises
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