A good movie

Even though this movie is rather obscure, since I have a weak spot for Natalie Portman, I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, it is a rather dark drama but I thought it was pretty good. Indeed, since I’m myself a step-dad for already 10 years, this movie definitely had an extra dimension and the makers showed many aspects correctly. Indeed, when I met my wife, she was still married, with 2 children, and within 6 months, I was living with them when I was just 23 years old at the time. It was tough (it still is) but I never had to face such tension with my step-children (Nick, my step-son, is, as a matter of fact, a huge movie fan and I mention him quite often in my reviews). They were always very kind to me and, in fact, it was my wife who was always impatient. But what could you expect? She had 10 years to learn to be a mom and even with the best intentions, I would never be able to fill this gap. Anyway, they did a pretty good job describing the tricky dynamic involved in such a nuclear family. I also enjoyed the fact that the main character was not really a nice person, she was in fact borderline egoistical which was quite refreshing. I mean, she went through a traumatic experience (which wasn’t necessarily an excuse) and by every mistake she made, she displayed how far behind and disconnected she was from her husband and her step-son (once again, a very familiar situation). Still, it wasn’t flawless though. Indeed, Scott Cohen was not a great choice to play the husband/father and he didn’t have much chemistry with Natalie Portman. Furthermore, during the last 20 minutes, it seemed that the makers didn’t know anymore what to do with them. Should they split? Should they stay together? Since they couldn’t decide, they even threw in a rather underwhelming ambiguous ending. To conclude, in spite of its flaws, I think it is actually a solid drama and it is definitely worth a look.

7/10