‘Goodrich’ Review: Michael Keaton and Mila Kunis Buoy a Good-Natured Dramedy Drowning in Clichés
When Andy Goodrich’s wife, Naomi (Laura Benanti), tells him that she’s checked herself into rehab and plans to leave him, few people are surprised. Everyone knew the mother of his two elementary school-aged children reached for pills at night to lull her to sleep and indulged in extra glasses of wine.
That the news nevertheless shocks Andy, played with an endearing clumsiness by Michael Keaton, speaks more to his own distracted state. The gallerist has never been a present 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 feels pressure to change.
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Goodrich, Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s second feature, observes Andy as he tries to be a better father. The narrative coasts on the familiar beats of this premise, offering only a handful of novel moments along the way. As Naomi seeks in-patient treatment for her drug addiction, Andy assumes sole responsibility for their twins, Billie (Vivien Lyra Blair) and Mose (Jacob Kopera), for 90 days — driving them to and from school, organizing their playdates, tending to their emotional lives. Alongside 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 performance carries most of Goodrich. While Andy isn’t exactly like 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 handle the demands of domestic life. He almost sends his son into anaphylactic shock by forgetting about his peanut allergy, and nearly sabotages’ the twins’ class attendance record by dropping them off late. Keaton navigates his character’s mishaps with his signature self-assured humor, finding sympathetic moments in his chronic ineptitude and the comedy in even the most serious scenes.
In doing so, he helps the picture overcome some of its more formulaic turns and distracts from an overwrought visual language. Meyers-Shyer has calibrated Goodrich to bring comfort and encourage tears, which is not an unworthy mission for a good-natured dramedy of this sort. But a more inspired path would have been welcomed. The plot offers too many recognizable tropes, from the overly precocious children to the pattern of Andy fumbling through a task and ending up triumphant.
An over-reliance on montages, shot by cinematographer Jamie Ramsay and tidily constructed against bits of Christopher Willis’s evocative score, disrupts the pace of the film. Some, like one in which Andy attends a feminist art showcase in hopes of wooing a new client, are funny. But others, like when Andy runs into his ex-wife, fit oddly within the narrative frame. These moments betray a mistrust in the viewers, as if without the cues we might not understand the emotional weight of certain scenes.
There’s no need for that, really, given that Meyers-Shyer has both a reliable story and solid cast of performers. When the director loosens her grip, giving parts of the narrative room to settle, the results are as charming as Andy — a besuited maverick of the art world — shopping for Halloween costumes with his children and another parent (a scene-stealing Michael Urie).
As the Andy raises his twins, his failures as a father to Grace (Kunis) come into view. He was never present for his oldest child’s upbringing in the same way, and even now, when she’s pregnant with her first child, manages to disappoint her. Goodrich finds its heart in the relationship between dad and daughter, as they exhume past hurts and create new memories. Kunis holds her own alongside Keaton and the duo possess a natural, pleasant onscreen chemistry. Kudos are due as well to Danny Deferrari, making the most of his brief appearances as Grace’s husband, the antithesis to Andy.
However, Andy and Grace’s dynamic would have benefited from more space, especially as it becomes more relevant to the film’s most emotional revelations. When Andy first gets news of Naomi’s absence, it’s Grace he calls for guidance in raising Billie and Mose. He also relies on her to help him close a deal with the daughter (Carmen Ejogo) of a famous, recently deceased artist whose work might help keep the gallery from closing. But when Andy still can’t keep his commitments to Grace, the disappointment nurtures within her a rage that threatens to explode.
It also heightens the stakes of Goodrich by creating some much-needed narrative friction. We all know a feel-good ending is coming eventually. But more patience, and fewer clichés, might have made its emotions feel more earned.
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