Like Father (2018)

Like Father (2018)

5/10

Starring

Kristen Bell

Kelsey Grammer

Directed by Lauren Miller Rogen

This has been a movie I have been looking forward to seeing since I heard of its production and intended release on Netflix, after seeing it – I’m not impressed.

One thing is, I like Kristen Bell’s persona and the power she brings to every production she is involved in, plus she had a good partner in Kelsey Grammer. In this movie they play father and daughter who have not seen each other for more than twenty-five years. The movie has them unite, after too much alcohol we are on a boat cruise with a screenplay that was below average. The director (who also did the screenplay) could have directed better.

Here is cliché a movie about a workaholic daughter who got dumped on the altar because her husband to be saw her with a phone when they were about to make their vows. There she saw her father who like I said above has been missing from her life for more than two decades, and he wants a reboot.

He meets with her a day after the dump and takes her drinking and they end up on her supposed to be honeymoon cruise to the Caribbean.

There is something missing in this tale, which will be the reason he walked out on her when she was five. That reason was delivered to us in what would be one of the worst build up to an expected outcome ever. There was a scene with the tossing of the phone into the water, it was not surprising it was expected.

We have seen this done in numerous movies and I was just waiting for it. The reason that scene stands out for me is how the whole thing played out. It was a complete wreck – there was the diving to look for the phone, shouting in public then a weird guy giving a stupid talk. At this point I almost gave up on the movie. Let us not ignore the elephant in the room; here is a man who has not been in the life of his daughter for twenty-five years thinking he has the right to grab that child’s phone and toss it. It is obvious the people that write these things have no experience in the irresponsible father and abandoned child dynamics.

I can guarantee you that Like Father is not your regular movie. The comedy was not so much on point and the drama was sometimes out of sync with the idea of reality the movie tried to deliver.

I will have to say the only way I was able to finish my viewing is because of the chemistry between Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer.