As expected, Jack and I loved this story of a single man fighting his mother for custody of his prodigy niece. Tom Flynn's screenplay was on the 2014 Black List of the most liked unproduced scripts and is smart, tying up all loose ends. I hadn't heard of Flynn (he directed and wrote one theatrical movie in 1993 and a TV movie in 2002) until a mutual friend called him a "20 year overnight success."
The great cast propels the project, led by Chris Evans (last blogged in Avengers: Age of Ultron) and young McKenna Grace (with her 11th birthday approaching in June, she has 41 credits already) as uncle Frank and 7 year old niece Mary who have coped just fine, thank you, since her mother's death 6½ years before. Then, as seen in the trailer, which chokes me up every time, the grandmother, played by Lindsay Duncan (the scary critic in Birdman), swoops in to mess it all up. Kindly support is provided by Octavia Spencer (most recently in Hidden Figures) and Jenny Slate (last blogged for the voice of the assistant mayor in Zootopia) as a neighbor and teacher, respectively.
Director Marc Webb (last blogged for The Amazing Spider-Man and I forgot to mention that he directed its sequel) keeps it all moving. Fun fact: screenwriter Flynn and his wife have a one-eyed cat named Fred. But Fred in the movie is digitally altered.
Composer Rob Simonsen (after the score for Burnt we've enjoyed his soundtrack to the series Life in Pieces) gives us pretty tunes which can be streamed from this Spotify link. There are also ten songs, all listed on imdb, my favorite of which is Cat Stevens' 1971 I Listen to the Wind.
Note: sufferers of MPMS (Motion Picture Motion Sickness) should sit in the back for mild effects. The hand-held camera sequences are short and won't bother you much. See my complete MPMS list here.
Rotten Tomatoes' audiences, averaging 86%, are more in line with us than its critics, tepid at 65. Heed the audiences and see this.
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