Jack and I really liked this indie movie about a family (white art professor mom, black writer dad, their middle school son) who move from Brooklyn to a fictional lily-white Washington state town. We streamed it on amazon for a small fee two weeks ago and enjoyed it at home.
Melanie Lynskey (after The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and They Came Together, she was wonderful in 16 episodes of Togetherness) and Nelsan Ellis (last blogged for Get On Up) are great as the parents Gina and Mack, as is Armani Jackson (I guess I saw his six episodes of Grey's Anatomy but don't remember, maybe because he was much littler then) as their son Clark. Oona Laurence, as Clark's new friend Ambrosia, looked familiar, because we've seen her in the trailer for the Sofia Coppola movie The Beguiled several times and she and Miranda McKeon (as Julie) are both good, too. Here's a photo of the three kids at the premiere. Janeane Garofolo (I'm fond of her acerbic work, including The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996), 52 episodes of The Larry Sanders Show, Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion (1997), Ratatouille, and the first season of Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce; we also saw her perform live recently at a New York comedy club, rambling somewhat incoherently, doing a set along with at least five other comedians) has a nice cameo as another professor.
Director Rob Meyer won a bunch of awards for a 2008 short and a couple for his first feature in 2013. This is his second. Writer Annie Howell is credited with two other features, co-directed and -written with another person, and this movie is also known as Nowhere Ever After. I can't find any of the music by Kris Bowers to stream online so I can't recommend it or not.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are not feeling our love, averaging 67 and 53% respectively. Nonetheless, we thought it was terrific.
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