The fact-based story here is compelling and astonishing: the saga of a young woman who survives not only a horrific parent — a pathological liar and toxic “entrepreneur” — but her own dangerous detour into life on the streets, before achieving an epiphany that helps her not only survive, but thrive.
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| Jennifer (Dylan Penn), determing to reform her deadbeat, unreliable father (Sean Penn), moves in with him and undertakes a serious makeover effort. |
Scary thought.
Director Sean Penn clearly intended this as a showcase for his actress daughter, Dylan, and she does her old man proud; her persuasive, deeply moving performance is all over the emotional map. We grieve for her character. Repeatedly.
Too bad Dylan’s old man didn’t return the favor.
As director, Sean Penn’s aggressively arty “style” pretty much destroys this film. His unrelenting, tight-tight-tight close-ups and up-the-nostrils angles are insufferable, and he relies on them throughout the entire film. It’s the ultimate insult: the lazy, TV-soap-opera affectation of a director who doesn’t trust his actors to carry a given moment.
Penn also favors jittery camerawork — I wondered if cinematographer Daniel Moder had been ordered to bounced on a trampoline — and often detours into blurry, grainy, 16mm “memory moments” intended to mimic sloppy home movies.
Just about every time Dylan Penn hits a crucial dramatic scene, her father steals focus by calling too much attention to his self-indulgent directorial tics and hiccups.
It’s an impressive job of sabotage … which is pretty damn ironic. How could he not have realized that he was ruining his own daughter’s fine work?
After a brief prologue in the early 1990s — which telegraphs the story’s conclusion — we’re introduced to the dysfunctional Vogel family: father John (Sean Penn), wife Patty (Katheryn Winnick) and adolescent children Jennifer (Jadyn Rylee) and Nick (Beckam Crawford). The adult Jennifer (Dylan Penn) narrates the details of their tempestuous upbringing, highlighting the degree to which John’s chronic unreliability exacerbates Patty’s fragile insecurity.
It’s the mid-1970s. John blows what little money he makes on flamboyant gestures, and then can’t make rent or put food on the table. Patty knows it’s just a matter of time before they’ll once again throw all their worldly possessions into the beat-up station wagon, and drive to some other Midwestern town, where John will somehow con their way into another short-term home.
But to adolescent Jennifer, the apple of her father’s eye, he’s magic. She’s enchanted by the very adventure of him: not quite old enough to see through such impractical acts, or wonder about his frequent, lengthy absences … or the dangerous company he keeps.
But she is frightened by the late-night screaming matches that erupt between her parents, which often prompt another of John’s disappearances. At such times, Jennifer and Nick take solace in each other: a sibling bond that remains firm and loving, as they grow older.
Rylee’s performance as the adolescent Jennifer is subtle and sublime; we’re able to appreciate her emotional nuances because she’s one of few performers not subjected to relentlessly tight close-ups. And so we note the wary awareness that begins to cloud Jennifer’s expression, as comprehension sets in.
Flash-forward a decade, at a point when John has been long absent. Jennifer (now Dylan Penn) has grown into a contemptuous, uncontrollable wild child with no respect for her mother, who has remarried (once again, quite unwisely). A crisis prompts the girl to leave home and reunite with her father, in an effort to find — in him — some trace of the doting parent she believed he was, when she was younger.
(The script minimizes the impact of her departure on Nick, which feels wrong; given the intensity of their connection, it’s hard to believe she’d abandon him so readily.)
This lengthy second act is the story’s emotional heart. Jennifer, determined to transform her father into a better version of himself, models good behavior by turning into a better version of herself. The question, then, is whether this is possible; is John’s love for his daughter stronger than his chronic narcissism?
The quiet battle is frequently heartbreaking. Jennifer’s cheerful, gentle coaxing and encouragement — so well portrayed by Dylan Penn — have an uphill battle against her father’s excuses, prevarications and insincerity: equally well conveyed by Sean Penn. We want to reach into the screen and smack John, each time Penn screws up his face into faux self-pity and near-tears.
He’s the punch line to that old joke about how you know when [insert target of choice] is lying: whenever he speaks.
All second acts must be followed by a third, of course … and it’s even more harrowing.
Until …
Ah, but that would be telling.
Winnick does similarly fine work as Patty, who persuasively undergoes transformations just as massive — and crucial — as those undertaken by Jennifer. Josh Brolin is memorable in his fleeting appearances as Patty’s hulking brother Beck (although I couldn’t understand why he didn’t beat the crap out of John at least once).
Despite the degree of dramatic impact that occasionally survives the shameful execution, I spent the entire 109 minutes wishing somebody else had occupied the director’s chair: somebody who could have extracted equally fine performances from both stars, and stayed out of their way. The result then would have been as powerful as 2017’s The Glass Castle, which this film resembles more than a little.
Instead, we’re left with a deeply flawed result that won’t get the attention Jennifer Vogel’s saga deserves.
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