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Like Father
Aug. 16th, 2018 08:57 amI almost didn’t watch the new Netflix original film Like Father because the trailer made it look dire, but in the end the lure of Kristen Bell was too strong and I watched it anyway and it was far less stupid than the trailer made it look.
Now I don’t want to oversell this movie - I don’t think I would have enjoyed it nearly as much if I hadn’t gone in with “Well if Kristen Bell isn’t enough to save it, I can always stop watching” expectations - but it’s much better than its trailer makes it look. The basic premise is that after Rachel (Bell) is jilted at the altar, she heads out for a night of drinking with her estranged father Harry, which somehow ends with the two of them taking the honeymoon cruise that Rachel intended to take with her new husband.
I realize this sounds like a set-up for a comedy but honestly the movie is not very interested in comedy and it works much better if you approach it expecting fairly low-key drama despite the zany premise.
Things I liked about this movie, in no particular order:
1. I think I would actually hate going on a cruise but this makes it look super fun, and also like it involves a never-ending delicious buffet.
2. For a while it seemed like the movie was heading toward a romantic subplot between Rachel and another passenger (played by Seth Rogen, who is married to the director Lauren Miller Rogen, another reason I hesitated about watching the movie), but instead it has a brief-rebound-fling subplot and honestly it was super refreshing not to waste loads of time on a romance when the real meat of the movie is Rachel’s relationship with her absentee father.
2.a. The review in The Atlantic complained that this subplot is “mostly around to show the icy depths of Rachel’s cold heart,” I guess because she… made Seth Rogen briefly kind of sad… by not being ready to jump right into a full-blown romantic relationship literally days after being jilted at the altar?
Seth Rogen swiftly finds a different woman to have a fling with, by the way. Does this fickleness show the icy coldness of his heart?
3. Does the movie soft-pedal the difficulties of re-creating a relationship between a father and the adult daughter he abandoned when she was five? Probably yes. But on the other hand it’s much less sappy than the trailer made it look, and not at all inclined to harp on forgiveness; even as Harry offers an explanation for his disappearance, both he and the movie know that no explanation could possibly excuse his actions. Rachel and Harry may create a relationship now, as adults, but that’s not going to make up for his absence during her childhood. At the end of the movie when Harry tells Rachel “I love you,” she doesn’t say it back.
( some spoilers )
8. There’s a scene set at a really beautiful pool beneath a waterfall in Jamaica and if I could have walked into the screen to go for a swim, I would have. The characters could have continued having their emotional crisis off to the left somewhere. I would have just soaked in the peace of the waterfall and it would have been great.
Now I don’t want to oversell this movie - I don’t think I would have enjoyed it nearly as much if I hadn’t gone in with “Well if Kristen Bell isn’t enough to save it, I can always stop watching” expectations - but it’s much better than its trailer makes it look. The basic premise is that after Rachel (Bell) is jilted at the altar, she heads out for a night of drinking with her estranged father Harry, which somehow ends with the two of them taking the honeymoon cruise that Rachel intended to take with her new husband.
I realize this sounds like a set-up for a comedy but honestly the movie is not very interested in comedy and it works much better if you approach it expecting fairly low-key drama despite the zany premise.
Things I liked about this movie, in no particular order:
1. I think I would actually hate going on a cruise but this makes it look super fun, and also like it involves a never-ending delicious buffet.
2. For a while it seemed like the movie was heading toward a romantic subplot between Rachel and another passenger (played by Seth Rogen, who is married to the director Lauren Miller Rogen, another reason I hesitated about watching the movie), but instead it has a brief-rebound-fling subplot and honestly it was super refreshing not to waste loads of time on a romance when the real meat of the movie is Rachel’s relationship with her absentee father.
2.a. The review in The Atlantic complained that this subplot is “mostly around to show the icy depths of Rachel’s cold heart,” I guess because she… made Seth Rogen briefly kind of sad… by not being ready to jump right into a full-blown romantic relationship literally days after being jilted at the altar?
Seth Rogen swiftly finds a different woman to have a fling with, by the way. Does this fickleness show the icy coldness of his heart?
3. Does the movie soft-pedal the difficulties of re-creating a relationship between a father and the adult daughter he abandoned when she was five? Probably yes. But on the other hand it’s much less sappy than the trailer made it look, and not at all inclined to harp on forgiveness; even as Harry offers an explanation for his disappearance, both he and the movie know that no explanation could possibly excuse his actions. Rachel and Harry may create a relationship now, as adults, but that’s not going to make up for his absence during her childhood. At the end of the movie when Harry tells Rachel “I love you,” she doesn’t say it back.
( some spoilers )
8. There’s a scene set at a really beautiful pool beneath a waterfall in Jamaica and if I could have walked into the screen to go for a swim, I would have. The characters could have continued having their emotional crisis off to the left somewhere. I would have just soaked in the peace of the waterfall and it would have been great.
