Everything's Going to Be Great: Well ... not quite

Everything's Going to Be Great (2025) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for partial nudity, sexual candor and frequent profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other video-on-demand options

By Derrick Bang

Folks passionate about All Things Theater — amateur or professional — are guaranteed to adore this modest Canadian dramedy.

 

Everybody else ... likely not. 

 

After a particularly trying day at school, Les (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) receives some
encouraging — if typically quite unusual — advice from his father, Buddy (Brian Cranston).

Director Jon S. Baird’s flamboyant touch approaches burlesque at times, and mainstream folks may find star Bryan Cranston’s character totally annoying. It’s also hard to forgive the unexpected midpoint hiccup in Steven Rogers’ script, after which the film loses considerable steam, never to be regained.

The year is 1989, the initial setting Akron, Ohio. Carefree Buddy Smart (Cranston) has led his family through a series of temporary theater management jobs ever since marrying his wife, Macy (Allison Janney), two decades ago. Everybody pitches in, whether serving as stage manager, prop handler, ticket seller or accepting roles in the current production.

 

Trouble is, they’ve never been successful enough to remain in one place for long, after which it’s on to the next small-town theater seeking new management.

 

The indefatigable Buddy is a relentless cheerleader nonetheless, insisting that this time will be different; they’ll finally make it; and so forth. Every time the clearly overwhelmed Macy points to the grim result from their failure to put enough warm bodies in theater seats, Buddy brushes her off by insisting, “Everything’s going to be great.”

 

In a word, he’s exhausting ... but Cranston, so adept at body movement and well-timed dialogue, makes him endearingly exhausting. Most of the time.

 

Younger son Les (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth), who worships his father, is fully on board; he’s a pretentious kid given to exaggerated outfits, with a tendency to quote lines from plays. During moments of confusion or crisis, he receives advice from dead thespians and playwrights such as Noël Coward, Ruth Gordon, Tallulah Bankhead and William Inge (each amusingly played by, respectively, Mark Caven, Chick Reid, Laura Benanti and David MacLean).

 

To say that Les stands out from his classmates is the worst of understatements; he may as well have the word “nerd” tattooed on his forehead.

 

“They don’t get me,” he glumly says to his father, at one point. No kidding.

Peace by Chocolate: A tasty confection

Peace by Chocolate (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, and suitable for all ages

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.10.22

Everybody in our bunkered, “fear the other” country should be forced to sit down and watch this Canadian charmer: as uplifting and (ahem) sweet a story — based on actual events — as I’ve seen in quite awhile.

 

Tareq (Ayham Abou Ammar, left) listens politely, but with mounting dread, as his father
Issam (Hatem Ali) explains how they can work together to rebuild the family's
chocolate empire.

In the real world, Issam Hadhad began his chocolate-making business in 1986, initially working from his grandmother’s kitchen in Damascus. He soon expanded into two shops, and within a quarter-century the business had grown to 30 employees, who helped distribute Issam’s chocolates throughout the Middle East and much of Europe.

In 2012, everything was destroyed by bombs dropped during the Syrian civil war, which had begun the previous year. The war forced the entire Hadhad family to leave Syria for Lebanon, where they pondered what to do next.

 

This is where director Jonathan Keijser’s quirky little film begins. He and co-scripter Abdul Malik depict this family’s subsequent saga with warmth, respect, a whimsical tone, and (more or less) fidelity to what actually happened.

 

Their narrative focuses on Issam’s son Tareq (a delightfully nuanced performance by Ayham Abou Ammar), the first family member to be accepted as a refugee sponsored by citizens of the tiny town of Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He arrives in the middle of a punishing winter; the shocked, wide-eyed expression on Ammar’s face — as he surveys the snowbound surroundings — speaks volumes.

 

(“In the Middle East,” the actual Tareq recalled, during a 2021 interview with The National News, “Canada [is regarded as] the coldest country that escaped from the Ice Age.”)

 

When greeted at the airport by sponsors Frank (Mark Camacho), his wife Heather (Cary Lawrence) and their friend Zariah (Kathryn Kirkpatrick), they gift him with a woolen cap emblazoned with the word “Canada.” This random act of kindness, along with cheery greetings from everybody Tareq meets, results in a severe case of culture shock (which Ammar plays with hilarious bewilderment).

The Kid Detective: A complicated case

The Kid Detective (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, drug use, sexual candor, fleeting nudity and violence

By Derrick Bang

This Canadian import is a droll, slightly tart slice of PI whimsy.

 

That’s actually too superficial a description of writer/director Evan Morgan’s engaging feature film debut. At times, The Kid Detective seems to be taking place in a slightly existential universe not quite our own, where characters drop mordant one-liners without cracking a smile.

 

When Abe (Adam Brody) and Caroline (Sophie Nélisse) realize they're being followed
by a dark sedan, they waver between two equally uncomfortable choices:
attempt to flee ... or confront.

At other times, matters unexpectedly turn real-world serious, and emotions are real-world familiar.

 

It’s an intriguing balancing act, which — for the most part — Morgan skillfully navigates. He’s helped considerably by star Adam Brody’s morose, vulnerable and yet unexpectedly engaging performance as the rather unusual title character.

 

As an adolescent, Abe Applebaum (Jesse Noah Gruman) became a local celebrity in the cheerful little town of Willowbrook, Ontario, thanks to his facility for solving minor mysteries and wacky crimes. His successes resulted mostly from perception and an acute sense of psychology: the way people think and therefore act.

 

Partly out of respect — and likely also out of amusement — the townsfolk even set him up in a downtown office, where good friend Gracie Gulliver (Kaitlyn Chalmers-Rizzato) worked as receptionist. But then she disappeared one day. Despite Abe’s best efforts, and that of the local police, neither she — nor her body — ever was found.

 

This failure leaves Abe traumatized.

 

Now 32 (and played by Brody), Abe works out of the same office, stubbornly solving the same trivial cases — finding lost cats, and so forth — in between hangovers and raging attacks of self-pity. He has become the town joke, barely making ends meet; his frustrated parents (Wendy Crewson and Jonathan Whittaker) clearly have spent years trying to prod him into responsible adulthood.

 

Even Abe’s Goth receptionist (Sarah Sutherland, hilariously condescending) treats him with contempt.

 

Enter Caroline (Sophie Nélisse), a 16-year-old orphan who brings a real case, by asking his help in solving the brutal murder of her boyfriend, Patrick. Although initially wondering if she’s putting him on — we see the wary uncertainty in Brody’s gaze — Caroline is absolutely serious, her wide, guileless eyes radiating sincerity. And, indeed, Patrick was stabbed 17 times (!).

 

To say the subsequent investigation proceeds in fits and starts would be an understatement. Although his intuition remains sound, Abe’s sloppy appearance and occasionally reckless behavior hinder more than help. None of this shakes Caroline’s faith; indeed, she even drives him from one lead to the next — Abe doesn’t have a car — and becomes a de facto partner.