Michael Keaton and Mila Kunis in Fatherhood Drama

When Andy Goodwealthy’s wife, Naomi (Laura Benanti), tells him that she’s checked herself into rehab and set ups to depart him, scant people are surpascendd. Everyone krecent the mother of his two elementary school-aged children accomplished for pills at night to lull her to sleep and indulged in extra glasses of thrivee.

That the recents nevertheless shocks Andy, applyed with an finishearing clumsiness by Michael Keaton, speaks more to his own unalerted 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 experiences prescertain to alter. 

Goodwealthy, Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s second feature, sees Andy as he tries to be a better overweighther. The narrative coasts on the recognizable beats of this premise, proposeing only a handful of novel moments alengthy the way. As Naomi seeks in-huging treatment for her drug graspiction, Andy supposes sole responsibility for their tthrives, Billie (Vivien Lyra Blair) and Mose (Jacob Kopera), for 90 days — driving them to and from school, organizing their applydates, tfinishing 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 applyance 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 deal with the insists of domestic life. He almost sfinishs his son into anaphylactic shock by forgetting about his peanut allergy, and proximately subversions’ the tthrives’ class uniteance write down by dropping them off procrastinateed. Keaton steers his character’s mishaps with his signature self-promised humor, discovering understanding moments in his chronic invientitude and the comedy in even the most solemn scenes.

In doing so, he helps the picture conquer some of its more createulaic turns and distracts from an overwrawt visual language. Meyers-Shyer has calibrated Goodwealthy to convey console and encourage tears, which is not an unworthy ignoreion for a excellent-natured dramedy of this sort. But a more encouraged path would have been greetd. The plot proposes too many recognizable tropes, from the overly precocious children to the pattern of Andy fumbling thraw a task and finishing up triumphant.

An over-reliance on montages, stoasty by cinematographer Jamie Ramsay and tidily erected agetst bits of Christopher Willis’s evocative score, disturbs the pace of the film. Some, enjoy one in which Andy unites a feminist art showcase in hopes of wooing a recent client, are amusing. But others, enjoy when Andy runs into his ex-wife, fit oddly wilean the narrative structure. These moments betray a miscount on in the watchers, as if without the cues we might not understand the emotional weight of certain scenes. 

There’s no necessitate for that, reassociate, given that Meyers-Shyer has both a depfinishable story and firm cast of applyers. When the straightforwardor slackns her grip, giving parts of the narrative room to resettle, the results are as pguideing as Andy — a besuited maverick of the art world — shopping for Hassisteen costumes with his children and another parent (a scene-stealing Michael Urie).

As the Andy lifts his tthrives, his flunkures as a overweighther to Grace (Kunis) come into watch. He was never current for his anciaccessest child’s upconveying in the same way, and even now, when she’s pregnant with her first child, deal withs to disassign her. Goodwealthy discovers its heart in the relationship between dad and daughter, as they exhume past hurts and originate recent memories. Kunis hanciaccesss her own alengthyside Keaton and the duo have a authentic, pleasant onscreen chemistry. Kudos are due as well to Danny Deferrari, making the most of his increate materializeances as Grace’s husprohibitd, 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 famous, recently definishd artist whose labor might help upgrasp the gallery from closing. But when Andy still can’t upgrasp his pledgements to Grace, the disassignment nurtures wilean her a rage that menaceens to explode.

It also heightens the sgets of Goodwealthy by creating some much-necessitateed narrative friction. We all understand a experience-excellent finishing is coming eventuassociate. But more patience, and scanter clichés, might have made its emotions experience more geted.