2.5 stars. Rated R, for frequent profanity, dramatic intensity and drug use
By Derrick Bang
It’s a shame to see a fine performance wasted on poor material.
Julia Roberts acts up a storm in this well-intentioned melodrama, but writer/director Peter Hedges’ increasingly contrived script ultimately defeats her.
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| Ben (Lucas Hedges, center) is protectively flanked by his mother (Julia Roberts) and step-father (Courtney B. Vance), as they watch his younger half-siblings participate in a church Christmas pageant. |
Part of the problem is familiarity breeding contempt, and raising expectations. We’ve recently seen Beautiful Boy, which is a far superior study of a family attempting to endure — and surmount — the anxiety-laden complexities of dealing with a drug-addicted young adult son. That film felt authentic, its various crises proceeding logically, one to the next.
Hedges, in great contrast, lards his film — which takes place during a single 24-hour day — with an escalating series of revelations, challenges and predicaments that ultimately become ridiculous. The compressed time period doesn’t help, since it calls greater attention to the escalating absurdity.
The morning of Christmas Eve is bright and cheerful, until Ben Burns (Lucas Hedges) surprises his family with a visit: unexpected — even potentially unwelcome — because the 19-year-old is supposed to be confined to a detox clinic. It’s okay, Ben smoothly insists; my progress has been excellent, so my sponsor approved this one-day visit, for Christmas.
His mother Holly (Roberts) is deeply conflicted, a duality that Roberts conveys superbly. Holly wants to believe him, but is doubtful; her daughter Ivy (Kathryn Newton), slightly younger than Ben, doesn’t trust him for a second. More to the point, Holly has built a new life, with a second marriage to Neal (Courtney B. Vance) that has produced their own two young children, Lacey (Mia Fowler) and Liam (Jakari Fraser). Their safety also warrants consideration.
(There’s no significant reference to Ben’s father, who plays no role here.)
Neal, patient and pragmatic, reminds his wife that they’ve been through this countless times before; rules have been established, which Holly agreed to. But it’s Christmas, and she desperately wants to share the holiday with her son. Ben, for his part, launches a charm offensive that quickly wins over his half-siblings.
But we viewers already know, emphatically, that Ben is lying. We watched him arrive at the house, while his mother and the other children were out shopping: witnessed his anger and impatience at not being able to get inside.
