The "kid and the wail"

Rating: 2/10 (11 December 2019)

There's a lot of the kid and plenty of wailing in this prosaic, mostly boring series of monologues. "The Squid and the Whale" was a good movie, because the characters were all edgy in some way, and portrayed by real talent. The story developed and had compelling psychological turns. This film, on the other hand, is really a poor attempt to portray dysfunction and fails, even as it wails, and wails, and wails.
It gets two stars for good acting by Laura Dern, Ray Liotta, and Alan Alda, who are not even given top billing. Scarlett Jo and Adam Driver are painful to watch. Sometimes scenes begin without taking any particular direction, or adding anything to a wafer-thin story.
Also the purposeful homage to Bergman's "Scenes from a Marriage" was a cheap attempt at elevating this thing. And ending with the same text that it started with, well . . . simply lazy.
Give it a pass, or use it to help you sleep.