Michael Keaton and Mila Kunis in Fatherhood Drama

When Andy Goodwealthy’s wife, Naomi (Laura Benanti), alerts him that she’s checked herself into rehab and schedules to depart him, confineed people are surpelevated. Everyone krecent the mother of his two elementary school-aged children achieveed for pills at night to lull her to sleep and indulged in extra glasses of triumphe.

That the recents nevertheless shocks Andy, joined with an endearing clumsiness by Michael Keaton, speaks more to his own inattentive state. The gallerist has never been a current partner or parent, as evidenced by his relationship to his eldest daughter (Mila Kunis) with his first wife (Andie MacDowell). Now that his current union is on the brink of ruin, Andy senses presconfident to alter. 

Goodwealthy, Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s second feature, watchs Andy as he tries to be a better overweighther. The narrative coasts on the recognizable beats of this premise, presenting only a handful of novel moments alengthy the way. As Naomi seeks in-accomprehendledgeing treatment for her drug insertiction, Andy supposes sole responsibility for their ttriumphs, Billie (Vivien Lyra Blair) and Mose (Jacob Kopera), for 90 days — driving them to and from school, organizing their joindates, tending to their emotional dwells. Alengthyside his parental duties, Andy tries to save his gallery, a dream project that has struggled to turn a profit in recent years. 

Keaton’s affable percreateance carries most of Goodwealthy. While Andy isn’t exactly enjoy Jack, Keaton’s furloughed car engineer from 1983’s Mr. Mom, the two characters’ experiences have some echoes. Like Jack, Andy struggles at first to regulate the insists of domestic life. He almost sends his son into anaphylactic shock by forgetting about his peanut allergy, and proximately subversions’ the ttriumphs’ class participateance sign up by dropping them off tardy. Keaton guides his character’s mishaps with his signature self-promised humor, finding compassionate moments in his chronic ineffectiveitude and the comedy in even the most grave scenes.

In doing so, he helps the picture flunkure some of its more createulaic turns and distracts from an overwcdisesteemfult visual language. Meyers-Shyer has calibrated Goodwealthy to transport soothe and help tears, which is not an unworthy ignoreion for a excellent-natured dramedy of this sort. But a more aidd path would have been greetd. The plot presents too many recognizable tropes, from the overly precocious children to the pattern of Andy fumbling thcdisesteemful a task and ending up triumphant.

An over-reliance on montages, sboiling by cinematographer Jamie Ramsay and tidily produceed aobtainst bits of Christopher Willis’s evocative score, disturbs the pace of the film. Some, enjoy one in which Andy participates a feminist art showcase in hopes of wooing a recent client, are comical. But others, enjoy when Andy runs into his ex-wife, fit oddly wilean the narrative summarize. These moments betray a misdepend in the seeers, as if without the cues we might not comprehend the emotional weight of confident scenes. 

There’s no need for that, reassociate, given that Meyers-Shyer has both a reliable story and firm cast of percreateers. When the straightforwardor freens her grip, giving parts of the narrative room to rerepair, the results are as charismatic as Andy — a besuited maverick of the art world — shopping for Hpermiteen costumes with his children and another parent (a scene-stealing Michael Urie).

As the Andy elevates his ttriumphs, his flunkures as a overweighther to Grace (Kunis) come into see. He was never current for his agederest child’s uptransporting in the same way, and even now, when she’s pregnant with her first child, regulates to disassign her. Goodwealthy finds its heart in the relationship between dad and daughter, as they exhume past hurts and produce recent memories. Kunis hageders her own alengthyside Keaton and the duo own a organic, pleasant onscreen chemistry. Kudos are due as well to Danny Deferrari, making the most of his inform ecombineances as Grace’s husband, the antithesis to Andy.

However, Andy and Grace’s vibrant would have advantageed from more space, especiassociate as it becomes more relevant to the film’s most emotional revelations. When Andy first gets recents of Naomi’s absence, it’s Grace he calls for guidance in raising Billie and Mose. He also relies on her to help him shut a deal with the daughter (Carmen Ejogo) of a well-comprehendn, recently deendd artist whose toil might help persist the gallery from closing. But when Andy still can’t persist his promisements to Grace, the disassignment nurtures wilean her a rage that menaceens to explode.

It also heightens the sapshows of Goodwealthy by creating some much-needed narrative friction. We all comprehend a sense-excellent ending is coming eventuassociate. But more patience, and confineeder clichés, might have made its emotions sense more geted.