Quirky and Sweet Comedy-Drama

Rating: 7/10 (15 June 2013)

I quite enjoyed this film. It felt more like a novel than a movie with its complex characters and their changing attitudes of one another. The material is nuanced and handled with deftness by the directors and the excellent cast. The filmmakers had enough trust in their actors (and the audience) to leave a lot of the characterizations to simple looks and fleeting expressions. Such restraint goes a long way towards softening and humanizing otherwise over-the-top characters and is welcome indeed.
Arkin is great in a showy, easy role. Kinnear--perhaps the one with the biggest arc--underplays nicely. Dano conveys much with expression and body language. Breslin doesn't hit any of those false line-readings so common in child actors and seems completely genuine and adorable. Carrell has the most complex role and plays it with a soulful conviction that, unfortunately, he rarely gets asks to do anymore. Collette has the thankless, underwritten Mom-role but brings such life and emotion to it that you're sold. Even the bit parts are well cast with famous faces and each does an excellent job inhabiting a fully realized character in the few minutes of screen time they're given.
I could have used a bit more humor, a bit more heft to the plot, and perhaps a bit more resolution. But these are ultimately quibbles. The movie finds its quirky sweet spot early and stays there all the way to the end--to entertaining effect.