The Glass Castle (2017)

Jack and I liked this powerful story, based on a memoir, of a straight-laced woman remembering her nomadic childhood with her mostly cheerful alcoholic father, hippie mother, and three siblings. We expect nominations, especially for Woody Harrelson (last blogged for Wilson) as the father Rex. Brie Larson (most recently in these pages for her Oscar-winning performance in Room) is tense as adult Jeannette and Ella Anderson and Chandler Head (coincidentally both were in The Boss though I didn't mention them) are wonderful as young and youngest Jeannette, respectively. Naomi Watts (last in The Book of Henry) is predictably wonderful as Jeannette's mother Rose Mary and Max Greenfield (most recently in Hello, My Name Is Doris) well cast as Jeannette's fiancé David. Special note for the performance of Robin Bartlett (of her dozens of credits the more noteworthy ones include Sophie's Choice (1982) as Lillian Grossman, Lean on Me (1989) as Mrs. Elliott, Postcards from the Edge (1990) as Aretha, 46 episodes of Mad About You as Debbie Buchanan, Dangerous Minds (1995) as Mrs. Carla Nichols, Shutter Island as Bridget Kearns, and Inside Llewyn Davis as Lillian Gorfein) as Rex's terrifying mother Erma in Welch, West Virginia. On a personal note, Bartlett was in my elementary school class in Manhattan but I have never looked her up once I started seeing her in movies. I doubt she would remember me.

There are some thematic similarities to Mosquito Coast (1986) and Captain Fantastic (although both of those were fiction), and, as it happens Charlie Shotwell, who plays young Brian, and Shree Crooks, who plays young Maureen, were both in Captain Fantastic as well.

This is the third feature for director/co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton, who won lots of awards for himself and Larson for his second, Short Term 12 (2013), which I intended to see. Co-writer Andrew Lanham co-wrote another produced screenplay with Cretton but we missed that one, too. Jeannette Walls' 1989 memoir, also titled The Glass Castle, was a New York Times best seller for five years.

Joel P. West's nice soundtrack can be streamed starting with this track and following along with the ones with the same image. I also appreciated Darla Hawn's cover of the Cole Porter tune Don't Fence Me In.

Rotten Tomatoes' numbers are not very good, with critics averaging 49 and audiences a bit better at 78. I wonder if it would have fared better if Larson had cracked a few more smiles. Look at this photo of Walls, a former gossip columnist for MSNBC.com, smiling more in one shot than Larson does in the entire movie. We liked it anyway two weeks ago. It's still playing widely in these parts and its DVD release is estimated for November, 2017.