It’s a durable bit of Hollywood conventional wisdom: Behind
every good man is a dead woman. “
Fatherhood,” a new
Netflix movie starring
Kevin Hart, is its latest affirmation. A movie widower, especially one with
children, draws on a bottomless reserve of audience sympathy, granted the
benefit of the doubt far beyond what any woman — however generous or virtuous
or grief-stricken — can expect.
اضافة اعلان
I don’t mean to suggest that Matt Logelin, the
Minneapolis-bred, Boston-dwelling tech guy played by Hart, is anything other
than the nice guy and conscientious dad that “Fatherhood” makes him out to be.
The same goes for the real Matt Logelin, author of the memoir “Two Kisses for
Maddy,” on which this movie, directed by Paul Weitz from a script he wrote with
Dana Stevens, is based. The problem is that Weitz, Stevens and Hart are so
eager to protect Matt from any hint of judgment or conflict that they come
close to denying him a personality.
It takes some effort to make Hart bland, and he is
occasionally allowed a bark of sarcasm or a flare of humor amid the tears,
smiles and way-too-easy jokes about how hard it is to build a crib, install a
car seat, unfold a stroller and change a diaper. When he is snappish with his
friends or testy with his mother-in-law, everyone on both sides of the camera —
and the screen — is quick to make excuses. After a while, this solicitude
becomes indistinguishable from self-pity.
The story begins as Matt struggles for words at the funeral
of his wife, Liz (Deborah Ayorinde), and then flashes back to the days leading
up to the birth of their daughter, Maddy, and Liz’s death. The baby’s
grandparents urge him to move back to Minnesota, where all of them live, but he
insists on staying in Boston and raising Maddy by himself. He has two goofy
friends, an oddball co-worker (Anthony Carrigan) and a bumbling Don Juan (Lil
Rel Howery), who stick by their pal and weather his sometimes cruel jabs.
One of Weitz’s strengths as a director — evident in “About a
Boy,” “In Good Company” and “Grandma” — is his knack for making kindness
interesting. He’s a dry-eyed sentimentalist, gentle in his mockery and
disinclined to designate villains. Everyone in this movie is decent, which is beautiful
in its way but also stultifying. There is a whisper of tension between Matt and
Liz’s mother, Marian (Alfre Woodard), a mostly unspoken history of mutual
dislike that threatens to erupt into conflict.
Similarly, the relationship between Matt and Maddy — who
halfway through the movie is suddenly 5 and played by the charming and impish
Melody Hurd — is as smooth and tidy as freshly installed tile. There are
invocations of the inherent messiness of parenthood, but spills are mopped up
instantly.
Contrary to what screenwriting manuals will tell you,
absence of dramatic conflict is not necessarily a flaw. But there has to be
something else for the viewer to sink into, whether it’s the flow and frenzy of
everyday life or the psychological contours of individuals and relationships.
Despite Weitz’s sensitive direction and a superb cast — including Frankie
Faison as Marian’s patient husband, DeWanda Wise as Matt’s patient love
interest and Paul Reiser as his patient boss — “Fatherhood” can’t quite
deliver.
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