A successful music producer quits the industry and exiles himself in upstate New York. However, his life is disrupted when his son and his protege come to his house unannounced and unexpectedly.
[Ifans] is ridiculous, vicious, and sympathetic all at once. He can deliver a line that cuts like a knife, break your heart, or make you burst out laughing.
Primarily a showcase for the spiky charisma of star Rhys Ifans, it's a low-key study of strained family relations that creates and sustains a certain wryly flinty mood up until a disastrous 11th-hour lurch into violent melodrama.
The beauty of Tim Godsall's film, adapted from a play by Carly Mensch, is that it eschews the obvious arcs and come-to-Jesus moments of your typical Bad Dad pics.
With a delicate touch of humanity, an abundance of humor, and the perfect pinch of dramatic gravitas, the film proves more than its conventional story presumes.
