Zen McGrath plays seventeen-year-old Nicholas, a troubled teen who decides to move from living with his mother (Laura Dern) after their relationship falters to go to stay with his lawyer father (Hugh Jackman), who now has a new younger wife and a baby. Like Beautiful Boy, this is an incredibly earnest and well-meaning film, but from dialogue to performances to mise-en-scene it is an incredibly beige and restrained experience that feels underplayed and at times dreary, with no real surprises or insight on offer and little done to really open up the material from its theatrical origins. The real pain in this movie is seeing Nicholas clearly in crisis but the well-meaning adults in his life - who inflicted the damage on him - seem unable to do anything to genuinely help and understand him. The inescapable final tragedy, however, is truly sad and plays well.
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