I cannot imagine the mental and emotional anguish of survivor’s guilt.
But Florence Pugh certainly conveys it persuasively, in this three-hanky melodrama.
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| Allie (Florence Pugh) is genuinely touched when Daniel (Morgan Freeman) shares his model railroad depiction of their New Jersey community. |
Following a quiet overview of a marvelously detailed basement toy train layout, accompanied by Morgan Freeman’s thoughtful voice-over, the story opens on a cheerfully rowdy pre-wedding gathering. Everybody has had a bit too much to drink — or smoke — while singer/songwriter Allison (Pugh) gamely performs one of her tunes on piano.
After the guests disperse, she and fiancé Nathan (Chinaza Uche) enjoy some quality quiet time, displaying the flirty, playfully sexy nature of their relationship.
(At which point, I glanced at Constant Companion — both of us having watched far too many movies, and therefore feeling that we’re being set up for some sort of catastrophe — and muttered, “Okay, when’s the penny gonna drop?”)
The following morning, Allie — as she prefers to be called — Nathan’s sister Molly (Nichelle Hines) and her husband leave their New Jersey neighborhood, intending to spend the day in Manhattan: trying on dresses, then taking in a play. As it’s a school day, their teenage daughter, Ryan (Celeste O’Connor), has been left behind with her grandfather, Daniel (Freeman).
The car chatter is lively; Allie’s eyes — she’s driving — keep straying from the freeway. She then worsens the situation by pulling out her phone, to check a map reference.
What happens next occurs very quickly. Braff, bless him, cuts to sharp black.
Our first glimpse of Braff’s delicate touch with deeply emotional scenes — and dialogue — comes next. Daniel, in the process of dropping Ryan off at school, gets The Phone Call. Freeman plays the scene wholly by the reaction in his gaze; we don’t hear the other end of the conversation. Then, the call concluded — sinking further into shock by the second — Daniel encourages Ryan to have a good day at school.
He gives the girl those precious few more hours of “normal,” before her life is ripped apart.
Allie, badly injured, wakens in a hospital bed. Nathan and her mother, Diane (Molly Shannon), are present. A police officer enters the room; chaos ensues.
Molly and her husband died in the crash; Allie survived.
Flash-forward one year. Allie, back in her mother’s home, remains an emotional wreck. She’s also hooked on pain pills, and the saga resumes at the point where — her various doctors, fully aware of the situation, having cut her off — she desperately “needs” another OcyContin prescription.
Diane wants to help — recognizes the increasing severity of Allie’s out-of-control frenzy — but is far from an ideal ally, given her own red wine-and-pill dependence. Nathan, alas, is out of the picture; Allie abandoned him months back.
Elsewhere, Daniel has been doing his best to raise Ryan on his own … and making absolute hash of it. The girl is a star soccer player, formerly on track to gain a full-ride scholarship … but more recently has been mouthing off to her teachers, and getting into fights (for which she’s ill-equipped). Daniel hasn’t the faintest idea what to do.
When not arguing with Ryan, Daniel finds peace with his basement train set: an elaborate scale model of their New Jersey neighborhood, laden with hand-painted figures that represent the people whose paths have crossed his life: where he can imagine the roads that weren’t taken, and a life that might have turned out differently. (A terrific metaphor, it must be mentioned, and equally great self-therapy.)
It gradually becomes clear that all the key players in this story are damaged, in one way or another. Daniel, a former New Jersey police officer and recovering alcoholic — 10 years sober — has been long estranged from Nathan, who fled from his father the moment he could. Nathan may be the most grounded, but he’s also burdened by emotional baggage relating to that estrangement.
Diane is pretty much useless; Ryan is on a fast track to ruining her life.
Then there’s Allie, whose increasingly irresponsible and reckless behavior sets our teeth on edge. Pugh plays her deterioration superbly, her clammy skin, predatory gaze and withdrawn, hunched posture amplified by pitiful pleading and angry outbursts. Allie is far from a sympathetic figure, at this point, but we nonetheless can’t take our eyes off her … in part out of concern (fear?) about what she’ll say or do next.
Pugh also is excellent at looking and behaving stoned, while Allie repeatedly insists that no, she’s not high.
The film’s most horrific sequence soon follows. Allie winds up in a bar, sitting alongside a couple of former high school peers now turned local losers (convincingly played by Alex Wolff and Brian Rojas). What initially seems a casual reunion quickly turns slimy, and then dangerous; Braff’s dialogue, and his handling of this scene, are throat-clutching.
The story’s slide into its second act is triggered by Allie’s gutsy decision to attend an AA session … which happens to be Daniel’s weekly group. They lock eyes, likely “meeting” for the first time, despite both knowing full well who the other is.
It’s tempting to wonder if what follows ever would happen in real life. It seems unlikely, but some people do have an impressive capacity for forgiveness and redemption. Regardless, Freeman and Pugh make it work. Along the way, we learn more key details about things past; again, it feels organic and authentic.
But then we hit the third act, and Braff injects one irresponsibly rash scenario too many: something from which, in the real world, coming back would be impossible. And what follows does feel contrived, despite the game efforts of all the actors.
That aside, Zoe Lister-Jones does solid work in the film’s second half, as the AA group member (Simone) who agrees to become Allie’s sponsor.
Shannon, on the other hand, is this film’s weak link. Never a strong performer, she’s quite distracting here: too shrill, given to wooden line readings, her “acting” all over the map. It’s impossible get a bead on Diane; she never becomes credible.
Bryce Dessner’s instrumental underscore frequently is interrupted by songs, some of them — particularly the early ones — seemingly too cheerful to serve as counterpoint to on-screen events. But pay attention to the lyrics; they’re all Allie’s compositions, complemented by Pugh’s haunting vocal chops. (If she ever abandons acting, she’d make a respectable singer/songwriter.)
Braff’s film certainly hits far more than it misses; bathing in this soapy melodrama isn’t too difficult, given the intensity of Freeman and Pugh’s work.
But do bring along plenty of Kleenex. You’ll need ’em.
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