Michael Keaton wowed audiences yet again recently with a return to one of his most famous roles in Tim Burton‘s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and despite being 73, he looks and feels timeless. Beetlejuice is a timeless character as well, as was Keaton’s portrayal of the Dark Knight in Burton’s Batman, but Keaton has always been more than just those over-the-top icons. He is also a talented dramatic actor and an Academy Award nominee. No matter how flawed a film might be, it can be saved if Michael Keaton is the lead.
That’s how it is with his latest film, Goodrich. Written and directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer, and co-starring Mila Kunis, Goodrich doesn’t deal with superheroes or the supernatural. It’s a refreshing, down-to-earth film for Keaton, with him playing an aging man who is going through a coming-of-age story in the last act of his life. It’s a simple, cozy dramedy, one you’ve watched before with beats you can see coming a mile away, and while it’s not going to go down as one of Keaton’s best, him giving his best takes it from being another paint-by-numbers film to something sweet and worth seeing if you want to see a feel-good story to counter the likes of Joker: Folie à Deux and Terrifer 3 at the cinemas.
What Is ‘Goodrich’ About?
No, Goodrich is not about the history of Goodrich tires, though come to think of it, I’d probably watch that. Goodrich is instead the last name of Andy Goodrich (Keaton), an art dealer whose life is coming apart at the seams. The film opens with Goodrich being woken up by a phone call from his wife, Naomi (Laura Bentani). He’s so clueless that not only did he not know that his wife wasn’t asleep beside him, but when she tells him that she’s checked herself into a ninety-day rehab because of a prescription pill addiction, he says he didn’t even know that she was struggling with pills, even though everyone else around him will later tell him they noticed. It should come as no surprise to him then (even though it does) that Naomi also says she wants a divorce because Goodrich doesn’t notice her.
This is the inciting incident of Goodrich, but it’s just one more issue in a growing mountain of them for Goodrich. Andy and Naomi are the parents of nine-year-old twins, Billie (Vivien Lyra Blair) and Mose (Jacob Kopera). Andy has suddenly become a temporary single father for the next three months, but he can’t bear to tell his kids the truth about why their mother is away, partially because that would mean having to face his role in it.
Andy is an older father in his second family. His first involved a marriage to a woman named Annie (Andie MacDowell), which produced a daughter, Grace (Kunis). Grace is now married and expecting her first child. She and her father have a strained relationship due to him not being there for her much when she was growing up, but now they’re forced to grow close when Goodrich leans on her for help with his kids, who are her much younger half-siblings, a situation that becomes even more complicated for him as his art dealership begins to crumble.
A Sappy Plot Nearly Takes Down an Interesting Premise
A coming-of-age story about a man in his 70s facing the hurt he has caused others is an interesting concept. Parts of it play out well because Goodrich is not a caricature. He’s a human being, one who loves his wife, sees his mistakes, and tries to get her back even though it’s most likely too late. He loves all three of his kids as well, but that doesn’t stop him from forgetting that one has a peanut allergy, or constantly mixing up his daughter’s names, even though they have a twenty-seven-year age difference. We can see that he is a good man pulled too thin as he tries to be there for his family while also trying to save his business, which could go under without the last-ditch attempt to win the chance to display the art of musician Tessa’s (Carmen Ejogo) late mother.
The flaw of Goodrich is that it falls into the trap of nearly every family dramedy trope. Out of nowhere, Goodrich forms a friendship with Pete (Michael Urie), a gay single father whose son goes to the same school as Andy’s. While their relationship is heartwarming and the source of a lot of laughs, it often serves as a source of exposition for Goodrich to talk about what he’s feeling. The score is filled with soft piano and guitar notes, telling us what to feel as the plot moves along with familiar beats. We know there’s going to be a scene of reunion between Goodrich and Naomi. We know that Grace is going to let out her hurt at her father treating his second family better than he did his first. And we know that baby’s going to come out at a pivotal point. If that’s not all, the last act of Goodrich even takes place during Christmastime, complete with some Christmas songs there to manipulate our emotions as we zoom in on Goodrich’s face. It’s sentimental and goes for the heartstrings, and yeah, it often works. A few scenes got to me and made me shed a tear.
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It all makes sense when you learn that writer and director Hallie Meyers-Shyer is the daughter of Nancy Meyers, one of the best at creating emotional dramedies with movies like What Women Want and Something’s Gotta Give. That upbringing is instrumental in Meyers-Shyer learning how to craft a similar film with Goodrich, but it would have been much better served by trying to surprise its audience with something new, rather than going for the route of wanting to be a warm blanket on a cold night.
Michael Keaton Doesn’t Need a Sequel to Entertain Us
None of this is to say that Goodrich is bad. Far from it. Its weakness is that it’s predictable, and a movie you’ve seen before, but its strength is in its cast. Kunis is great as a daughter who just wants to be loved, and the young kids are stellar, especially Vivien Lyra Blair. We already know she’s a talented young actress thanks to her work in Boogeyman and playing Leia Organa in Obi-Wan Kenobi, but she steals every scene she’s in as Billie, a little girl wise beyond her years who sees everything for how it is and isn’t afraid to say so.
Goodrich might have been a little too much with another actor in the lead role, but Michael Keaton keeps it grounded so that it doesn’t float off. He never overacts or attempts to emotionally manipulate the audience, even when the script does. He simply plays a man, warts and all, without trying to tell us how to feel about it. He can say so much in just a look, without going into a long monologue. Goodrich is a man filled with pain, much of it through his own doing, but he’s also a strong one who refuses to quit. Keaton has the biggest laugh line in Goodrich when he briefly lets out his emotions during a breathing class with Grace, and he also has the most emotional moment when, without saying a word, he watches in awe as Pete (Danny Defarri), his son-in-law who he thought was a doofus (another dramedy trope), calms Grace in a way he never could. Keaton doesn’t have a scene where he bawls or balls up his fist and screams at the camera. He doesn’t need to. An actor of his caliber can say so much through so little, and it’s because of this that Keaton glides from one scene to the next.
Goodrich is a cute little movie. It’s one of those where you walk out of the theater with a smile on your face, but forget about it soon after as it mixes in with every other film just like it. Still, in the moment it works, and despite its flaws, Goodrich is just more proof of how good we’ve got it that we get to witness an actor like Michael Keaton.
You’ve seen several dramedies just like it, but Michael Keaton packs a punch throughout the familiar beats.
- Release Date
- October 18, 2024
- Director
- Hallie Meyers-Shyer
- Michael Keaton proves that he can make any film he’s in better.
- Goodrich and Grace have an emotional relationship that leads to the best scenes.
- Vivien Lyra Blair has become one of Hollywood’s best child actors.
- Some characters seem to exist only for expostion’s sake.
- Nearly every dramedy trope is attempted.
- The third act nearly becomes unbearably sappy.
Goodrich is now in theaters. Click below for showtimes.
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