Happy Father’s Day!
Like last year (and 2020, for that matter), I’m presenting a batch of reviews for movies focused on fathers and the relationships (good or bad) they have with their children. As always, I like to ferret out a wide variety of types, so there are dads who are doin’ a heckuva job, dads trying their best with mixed results, dads who are a bit clueless about their progeny and/or how to relate to them, dads who attempt to make amends with their estranged offspring, and dads who are cold-hearted bastards—the full gamut! Maybe you’ll see a bit of your own father in one or more of these paternal figures.
Hopefully not the one who won an Academy Award below.
Affliction (1998)
Directed by Paul Schrader. Starring Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, James Coburn, Willem Dafoe, Holmes Osborne, Jim True-Frost, Christopher Heyerdahl, Mary Beth Hurt, Brigid Tierney, Tim Post. [R]
A sins-of-the-father story handled by Paul Schrader (adapted from a book by Peter Banks), which should clue you in on what to expect—pervasive bleakness, slow-burn escalation, simmering frustration and rage, explosions of violence, but no catharsis or satisfaction. Divorced small-town traffic cop Nolte doesn’t get much respect from the local population, and despite having a girlfriend (Spacek) and a daughter, doesn’t feel very loved either; he blames his resentment and general unhappiness on his abusive drunk of a father (Coburn), an intimidating old cuss whose wife recently died and hardly seems bothered by it. Rancidness lingers under the surface of the stock script elements, including a hunting accident Nolte is convinced should be treated as a murder investigation and the timeworn observation that abusive fathers beget children capable of the same abuse, but even when so much acreage of pain leads to predictable results (e.g., Nolte losing his temper and manhandling his daughter in public before practically liquefying in apology), the actors give it disquieting power, all the way to the haunting (and darkly ironic) conclusion. Coburn won Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards.
73/100
Blood Father (2016)
Directed by Jean-François Richet. Starring Mel Gibson, Erin Moriarty, Michael Parks, William H. Macy, Diego Luna, Thomas Mann, Dale Dickey, Miguel Sandoval. [R]
After a break-in goes bad and she shoots her scummy boyfriend, drug addict Lydia (Moriarty) returns home to see her estranged father (Gibson), but the dead boyfriend apparently had ties to a Mexican drug cartel, and gangbanging thugs and a cartel hitman force the two of them to take it on the lam. There are flashes of humor in Gibson’s performance, which is otherwise consumed by his now-familiar raspy, rage-prone intensity, but as written and played, his daughter and the relationship she shared with her father are never convincing—after a brief acclimation period, she’s too well-adjusted and receptive most of the time for such a recently frightened, pissed-off burnout. The pulpy B-movie plotting and routine action scenes never eclipse the threshold of minor diversion, and none of the bad guys are developed enough to rate higher than faceless menace or flash-in-the-pan psycho. Aside from the star—disgruntled onscreen and off—this action-thriller is as serviceable as it is forgettable, so it’s a little discomforting to declare that Mad Mel deserved better. Peter Craig adapted his own novel for the screen with Andrea Berloff.
48/100
Brad’s Status (2017)
Directed by Mike White. Starring Ben Stiller, Austin Abrams, Jenna Fischer, Shazi Raja, Michael Sheen, Luke Wilson, Jemaine Clement. [R]
Despite living a comfortable life with a loving wife and bright son, Brad Sloan (Stiller) is forever held in thrall by insecurities that recognize he’s not as accomplished or affluent as some of the people he knew in his youth. While traveling with his son, Troy (Abrams), to visit colleges in Boston, he reflects on those perceived shortcomings and risks wrecking Troy’s opportunities through unrealistic expectations, bad advice, and well-intentioned but misplaced griping. Has a few pointed things to say about privilege, responsibility, success and priorities as seen through the opposing lenses of youthful idealism and pragmatic disillusionment, and wisely takes no hard sides; similarly, Brad is never made out to be right or wrong, and he gets to be more honest and unapologetic with himself than with others since speaking candidly tends to be a turn off (or, worse, red flag) for those listening. It’s the studied yet broad-stroke portraits of Brad’s old friends (played by the likes of Michael Sheen and Luke Wilson) where writer/director Mike White most clearly states his own point-of-view, but the depth of each characterization is as limited as their few minutes of screentime, and the “college visit” story apparatus compartmentalizes itself as a vehicle for midlife crisis-inspired soul searching. Amid the occasional (and always brief) off-key or uncharacteristic slip, this collection of insightful and well-modulated episodes never quite comes together, but at least the movie wisely exits on punctuation halfway between an ellipsis and a question mark instead of a declarative period. Montreal serves as a stand-in for Boston for a number of scenes.
64/100
Broken Lance (1954)
Directed by Edward Dmytryk. Starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner, Richard Widmark, Hugh O’Brian, Earl Holliman, Katy Jurado, Jean Peters, Eduard Franz, E. G. Marshall.
King Lear-esque saga of tough, stubborn cattle baron Tracy and the sons he treats as employees instead of flesh and blood family. Youngest son Wagner was birthed by Tracy’s Native American second wife (Jurado), which drives a further wedge between him and his brothers, including the resentful eldest (Widmark) whose ambitions outstrip the unfavored position his father has given him. Tracy is unusually gruff in one of the least sentimental or sympathetic roles he ever played (and it’s not even the first time he’d played a cattle baron on screen), and if the scope of the story hadn’t turned grand tragedy into masculine soap opera, it might have made for a sweeping father-and-sons drama. There’s an unmistakable littleness to the production despite demands for widescreen glory and intimidation, and more time afforded Jurado (too pious in these limitations) and Widmark (too predictable because of the same) would have been preferable to the cut-and-paste blood feud dynamics among the brothers and between Tracy and Wagner, a character who’s never convincing as a son/sibling in this family and is never better served than his opening scene being released from prison. Writers Richard Murphy (screenplay) and Phillip Yordan (story) sew too many halfhearted social themes into the mix (racism, political corruption, industrial pollution, etc.) for any of them to leave a substantial impression. Nevertheless, the latter scribe was given an Academy Award; he also co-wrote the screenplay to the 1949 non-Western which inspired this one (House of Strangers).
57/100
Ezra (2024)
Directed by Tony Goldwyn. Starring Bobby Cannavale, William Fitzgerald, Rose Byrne, Robert De Niro, Rainn Wilson, Tony Goldwyn, Vera Farmiga, Geoffrey Owens, Matilda Lawler, Whoopi Goldberg. [R]
Struggling stand-up comedian Max Brandel (Cannavale) is the divorced father of a high-functioning autistic boy named Ezra (Fitzgerald), and he, shall we say, overreacts when he feels the kid isn’t getting the care, consideration and diagnosis that’s warranted in his son’s special case. By overreact, I mean he commits a “well-intentioned” kidnapping and takes his good-luck charm on a little road trip to Los Angeles where Max is scheduled to audition for “Jimmy Kimmel Live”. A drama as earnest as it is labored, containing the sort of performances which, separated from the forced emotional acrobatics of the script, are forged with passion and effort (even when said effort so clearly shows). Director Tony Goldwyn, who also co-stars as Max’s ex-wife’s boyfriend, works inside the intimate spaces with Daniel Moder’s camera, a technique that’s only intermittently effective (e.g., studying Cannavale’s weathered face onstage as he transforms his storytelling comic style on the fly into a verbal exorcism of personal demons). Despite a fine, fearless showing from Fitzgerald, his character is too often treated as a plot device or bullhorn for the film’s themes, and at its most blatant and baldly manipulative, this misguided tactic torpedoes almost all goodwill the cast has generated. The message would have landed truer if the story weren’t so pat it can hardly be believed. First screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023.
48/100
Fatherhood (2021)
Directed by Paul Weitz. Starring Kevin Hart, DeWanda Wise, Melody Hurd, Alfre Woodard, Lil Rel Howery, Paul Reiser, Anthony Carrigan, Thedra Porter, Frankie Faison, Deborah Ayorinde, Maria Herrera. [PG-13]
After the mother dies in childbirth, Kevin Hart is ill-prepared to raise his newborn child as a single parent, putting tremendous strain on his career, his social life, and his mental health. Still clinging to the old standby that men aren’t suited to be primary caregivers for children, this 2021 seriocomedy is outdated in its formulaic, middlebrow approach to canned crises and milk-mild gags. Safeness is synonymous with vacant pleasantness in this world, so it won’t tax your nervous system, gag reflex, or higher brain functions, but even for fans of Hart, it will feel like reruns of any half-dozen (mostly lazy and/or unsuccessful) previous ventures into nurturing-male quasi-sitcom territory: Mr. Mom, Jersey Girl, you name it. Which is a shame because Hart is more reined-in than normal and arrives at something that at least resembles a sincere performance, and young Melody Hurd is winsome compared to the cookie-cutter child actors that customarily fill these roles in bland family-oriented fare out of Hollywood. Produced for theatrical release by Sony, it was later sold to and distributed by Netflix, which is fitting because it feels like one of those inoffensive blips that comes and goes from subscribers’ memories within a couple weeks of its debut, replaced by whatever’s coming down the pike next (something with Adam Sandler or Ryan Reynolds, perhaps?). Director Paul Weitz scripted with story writer Dana Stevens; Hart co-produced.
41/100
The Great American Pastime (1956)
Directed by Herman Hoffman. Starring Tom Ewell, Anne Frencis, Ann Miller, Rudy Lee, Bob Jellison, Raymond Bailey, Dean Jones, Wilfrid Knapp, Judson Pratt. [R]
Tom Ewell is almost as off-putting here as he was the previous year in The Seven Year Itch; instead of lusting for an objectified Marilyn Monroe, he’s a dishwater-dull dad who agrees to manage a Little League team. His young son abandons ship for a rival team and bets daddy dearest his new team will never be defeated by his old one, but this and the baseball team’s success in general are practically secondary to the flirtations between Ewell and a fashionable widow (Miller) whose son gets favored treatment because, well, men are easily made stupid by hormones. The lamenting phrase, “They don’t make ’em like they used to,” applies here, assuming what you want them made like is a 1950s sitcom, so wholesome even when the father harbors fantasies for a woman outside his marriage that the closest subversion I spotted in its “virtuous” conservative veneer was noticing there was a black kid on the team (he doesn’t get a name, no one gives him any lines, and he’s almost never alone in the frame, but he’s there!). The wife’s (Miller) efforts to learn the game go nowhere, she only seems mildly annoyed by all the attention her husband is giving another woman (maybe because she’s thinking, “Who could possibly want this schmuck I married?”), and nothing ever comes from the son’s habit of halfheartedly rubbing in his dad’s failures as a team leader; in fact, I don’t even think there was an actual payoff to their dollar wager. Amid a ton of banal strikeouts, pop flies, and ground-outs, Ann Francis’ morning-time mockery of Miller’s theatrical hospitality earns the movie’s only smile.
31/100
Infinitely Polar Bear (2015)
Directed by Maya Forbes. Starring Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldaña, Imogene Wolodarsky, Ashley Aufderheide, Muriel Gould. [R]
Writer Maya Forbes makes her directorial debut with this portrait of manic depression given a quirky, upbeat spin—why confront problems head on when they can be solved by cuteness? Determined to give her family a better life by earning an M.B.A. degree, Saldaña moves to New York City and temporarily leaves behind her two young children, reluctantly counting on her mentally-unreliable husband (Ruffalo) to care for them in her absence. Ruffalo works hard to convincingly be a frustrating beacon of irresponsibility and a well-meaning, devoted father, but no matter how much he brings to the role or how much Forbes draws from her personal life (her own father was afflicted with bipolar disorder), his interactions with his too-precocious-by-half children feel scripted, and he always manages to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction whenever the character-based narrative requires it. Although she isn’t given enough to do, Saldaña’s lack of histrionics is a relieving counterpoint to her onscreen husband’s showier details. Keir Dullea has a small role as Ruffalo’s father. Co-executive produced by J. J. Abrams. Premiered at Sundance about a year-and-a-half prior to its release.
65/100
Old Dads (2023)
Directed by Bill Burr. Starring Bill Burr, Bobby Cannavale, Bokeem Woodbine, Katie Aselton, Jackie Tohn, Rachael Harris, Miles Robbins, Reign Edwards, Dash McCloud. Justin Miles. [R]
Stand-up comedian and sometime-actor Bill Burr makes his directorial debut with a comedy that plays out like a collection of his generational divide gripes and mockeries of indulgently prejudicial values jammed into the same “male friend group in midlife crisis mode” formula used for movies like Wild Hogs and Grown Ups. It’s not nearly as bad as either of those, but even though the language is rougher, the aesthetics are copied and pasted and the “crisis averted, life goes on” conclusion wraps things up as blandly as possible for a movie where a guy gets in trouble for justifiably calling his kid’s teacher the c-word. He (Burr) and his two best friends (Cannavale, Woodbine) are kicked out of the company they started, adding to the pressures they feel at home with their significant others and offspring—Burr’s got a preschooler and a second child on the way, Cannavale’s kid is an undisciplined terror, and Woodbine just got his girlfriend pregnant even though he had a vasectomy (and he’s the one in the wrong for being suspicious?). The edginess of Burr’s angry, “old school” comic persona has been converted into superficial petulance and last-sane-man-standing whining—legitimate as his point of view often is, the jokes are made all too easy by leaning hard into exaggerated stereotypes and having everyone outside his friend group act the fool and/or overreact in every situation—so you’re better off just checking out one of his stand-up specials, talk show appearances, or podcast rants where a lot of similar jokes aren’t as watered-down. Burr also co-wrote (with Ben Tischler) and served as one of several producers. Bruce Dern cameos.
40/100
Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939)
Directed by Richard Thorpe. Starring Maureen O’Sullivan, Johnny Weissmuller, Henry Stephenson, Frieda Inescort, Ian Hunter, Johnny Sheffield, Henry Wilcoxon.
After a three-year break, Johnny Weissmuller again dons the loincloth as the Ape Man, and inspiration must be choking on fumes because the filmmakers pull the tactic sitcoms would later use to revitalize the tired formula—add a little kid to the mix. Tarzan and Jane adopt the boy (named, well, “Boy”), who turns out to be the heir to the Greystoke fortune, and scheming distant relatives convince Jane the boy would be better off getting raised in civilization. We’re supposed to believe Jane would betray Tarzan to make that happen, which is a shame, because the movie gets off on the right foot by having Tarzan first appear right after the dialogue, instead of belaboring a strained premise to bring the hero in contact/conflict with members of the civilized world. Also, as formulaic as certain elements are (and as moldy as all the stock footage is looking), this entry features some of the more vivid and intriguing outlier characters, and a few decent shivers and thrills to whet the appetites of jungle adventure enthusiasts. No real faulting Johnny Sheffield or his spirited, athletic efforts as Boy, but it’s hard to get onboard with the circumstances behind his character’s arrival to the series (his mimicry of Tarzan’s famous call is also way too “cute”). Pregnant with her first child, O’Sullivan planned on vacating her role after this outing, so Jane was initially killed off at the end before test screening furor convinced producers to use an alternate ending. Laraine Day appears in the opening scene.
60/100
We Bought a Zoo (2011)
Directed by Cameron Crowe. Starring Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Colin Ford, Thomas Haden Church, Maggie Elizabeth Jones, Elle Fanning, Patrick Fugit, Angus Macfadyen, John Michael Higgins, Carla Gallo, J. B. Smoove. [PG]
Widower Damon decides against all reason and recommendation to uproot his children and start a new life on a piece of property shared by a rundown zoo, the stipulation being he who bought it must also run it. Boy, I hope the solutions to his and his family’s problems can be found refurbishing the zoo with the help of a dedicated staff (including a zookeeper who looks like Scarlett Johansson and her female cousin who’s roughly the same age as Damon’s sullen son…). Although liberally inspired by a person’s memoir with the same punchline-in-the-making title, here’s a movie which presents a clear and relatable issue—grieving the recent death of one’s spouse/parent—and then goes about confronting and conquering it in an entirely arbitrary fashion. I like animals and visiting zoos, and, yes, I liked these animals and spending time in this zoo, but I was perplexed by what it was in the hard work and financial hardships Damon and his kids go through that made them feel more complete and satisfied. There’s more dramatic tension to be found appeasing a strict inspector (Higgins)—a reasonable obstacle converted into a blatant writer’s invention for the sake of facile suspense/entertainment—than there is in tackling the serious issues in play. (There is a risky scene at the end where the three of them go to the diner where Damon first met his wife-to-be, but the risk goes bust because, as presented, it’s cutesy and cloying, not poignant.) Writer/director Cameron Crowe’s work has been severely lacking since winning an Oscar for penning Almost Famous, but instead of the major miscalculations that sabotaged later movies like Elizabethtown, it’s a plastic safeness and family-friendly glibness that makes this one so wishy-washy and predictable; seeing as how this is the only time he shared screenwriting credit with someone else on a feature film, it becomes a safe bet to suspect a good portion of the blame belongs elsewhere when the collaborator in question is Aline Brosh McKenna. Original score by Icelandic musician Jónsi, and as expected, Crowe has assembled a nice jukebox playlist for the soundtrack, which includes a recording (“Hoppípolla”) from Jónsi’s band, Sigur Ros.
45/100
When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007)
Directed by Anand Tucker. Starring Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth, Matthew Beard, Juliet Stevenson, Claire Skinner, Gina McKee, Bradley Johnson, Elaine Cassidy, Sarah Lancashire. [PG-13]
For a movie whose premise promises emotional tension and deep reflection, it’s remarkable how quickly everything evaporates from memory as it drags along. Not even the fragmented chronology shifting between past memories and present consequences makes anything in this superficially heartfelt yet exceedingly insular and bland film come to life. Jim Broadbent and Colin Firth inhabit their characters with skill, but where are their entry points? Where’s the gadget to convert the viewer from observer to participant? All the soft focus and heavy shadows and delicately sad background music in the world wouldn’t convince me this is a human interest story worth the interest of any human in the audience. To describe the plot is to describe an entire sub-genre of memoir-centric introspection: a successful but unsatisfied man tries to reconcile the mixed feelings he has for a parent who’s not going to be winning “Father of the Year” any time soon. The actors do what they can, the script doesn’t screw up a lot of tried-but-true personality defects, the direction is dutifully understated instead of melodramatic or clunky…but nothing encouraged more than a fleeting second or two of alertness before I sank back down and wondered how close it was to the end (until the credits finally rolled, not close enough). Carey Mulligan has a small role. Also known by the slightly lengthier title of And When Did You Last See Your Father?, which matches the name of Blake Morrison’s best-selling source material.
39/100
World’s Greatest Dad (2009)
Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. Starring Robin Williams, Alexie Gilmore, Daryl Sabara, Evan Martin, Henry Simmons, Geoff Pierson, Mitzi McCall. [R]
High school poetry teacher and unsuccessful aspiring writer Williams is trying his best to bond with teenage son Sabara, but the kid is so relentlessly hostile, foul-mouthed, and obsessed with weird porn and dangerous masturbation techniques, it seems pretty hopeless. A shocking turn of events, however, changes the way students and faculty perceive both father and son, and Williams chooses to live vicariously through the attention and adulation. Dark comedy curiously goes for the throat in the first half and then backs off in the second even as the central character abandons his principles and does some repellent things—the barbs aren’t as sharp as they oughta be for the attacks on the cult of post-mortem worship. Williams shrewdly plays it close to the vest throughout, and he never lets what he’s thinking get spelled out; we understand the strategy from afar since it’s set up cleanly with his frustrations over never getting published and his jealousies with a popular colleague who’s getting a little too close to the T.I.L.F. (Teacher I’d Like to F—) he’s seeing in secret, but his demeanor remains sad yet earnest until he finally comes clean. The subject matter will turn off certain viewers, as all black comedies do, but there are a few “straight” laughs in the mix as well (in response to a student’s surprise that he’d recognize the lyrics to “Under Pressure,” Williams matter-of-factly states, “Jason, I’m white”). Most successful feature to date from acidically subversive writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait. Bruce Hornsby proves to be a good sport for showing up in a cameo after being mocked multiple times earlier in the film; Goldthwait and Krist Novoselic appear briefly as well.
64/100
Check back in a few days for the next update!
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