For writer-director Hallie Meyers-Shyer, Michael Keaton and Mila Kunis play a father and daughter, in a nondescript comedy-drama about modern family relationships that also includes a little-seen Andie MacDowell.
Andy Goodrich (Michael Keaton, who we just saw in the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice nostalgic for Tim Burton) has an art gallery. When the film opens, he is woken up in the middle of the night by his wife, Naomi (Laura Benanti), who tells him that she has just started detoxification and that she is leaving him, for three months, in charge. of their 9-year-old twins, Billie (Vivien Lyra Blair) and Mose (Jacob Kopera).
As you can imagine, the old dad is completely overwhelmed by the events and so he contacts Grace (Mila Kunis), his pregnant eldest child whom he had from his previous union with Annie (Andie MacDowell). Relations between the father and his daughter are not in good shape, the latter having suffered from the father’s absence. And the rest is easy to guess. We even get a finale that takes place at Christmas… music included!
Without being bad (it would still be difficult with this range of actors), Goodrich never rises above the fray. Yes, it’s nice to see Mila Kunis and Andie MacDowell and even Michael Keaton outside of Tim Burton’s universe. But all three give the impression of playing again characters already embodied in the past, which, with the little honeyed music which punctuates the feature film, gives a curious, and heartbreaking, feeling of déjà vu.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Goodrich hits theaters on October 18.
