Goodrich | Film Review

 

Andy's (Michael Keaton) life is upended when his wife goes to rehab, leaving him to care for their 9-year-old twins alone. While struggling to become the parent they need, Andy finds himself leaning on his older daughter Grace (Mila Kunis) for support.

I hadn't heard of this movie when it came out on Prime Video, so I was surprised by the cast! But it seemed like it would be a sweet story, so I was interested in seeing it.

I liked this film.

You get to know the characters right away, and they're all really easy to love. You're instantly rooting for them and you continue to root for them until the film ends.

The premise is really interesting. It's not the most original movie you'll ever see, but it's really interesting to see the different dynamics between the characters - in particular, Keaton and Kunis had great chemistry and played father-and-daughter really authentically. You truly believe in their relationship.

However, the film spent way too much time with Andy and not enough with his kids, particularly the younger ones that he was trying to parent. Yes his job struggles are vaguely interesting, but not enough to take up half of the movie.

In fact, I probably would have cut the whole work storyline and focused solely on parenting.

Because the kids, including Kunis, are the best part of the movie. It should be noted that the younger children are played by Vivien Lyra Blair and Jacob Kopera, and like all the actors in the film, they do a really good job playing their characters.

It would have been great if the sibling relationship had been developed a bit more - they barely saw each other.

It also would have been better if we didn't always have to wait for the third act to have a conflict. If the confrontation had taken place earlier in the film, there would have been time to truly understand the resentment and the characters would have had time to get over it. As it was, the conflict was thrown in quickly and then glossed over in favour of a bigger plot point.

But then the ending was so sweet that it kind of made up for it - but only a bit!

Overall this was a lovely little family drama. I have no idea why it was snuck onto streaming with no promotion, but I'd definitely recommend it.

6.5/10