My thoughts swayed on this throughout, though never reached higher heights than "this is actually fine".
The first scene in which we lay eyes on Charlie sets a very unkind tone, but I think there's more empathy throughout the movie, or at least there's supposed to be.
I don't feel best placed to be the arbiter of depiction vs exploitation, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt on its intentions.
For me, it's ultimately the ending where this all…
When I heard of this and saw the still image of Hanks and Wright woefully de-aged, I assumed this was going to be a linear journey through the lifespan of one particular couple.
What this actually is turned out to be much more interesting in both concept and execution, and ultimately extremely touching. Not without its flaws, quite a few to be fair, but if you let those get in the way of enjoying this by the end then you're only stealing from yourself
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Well-intentioned, but I think the whole "you had a son" revelation was a bit of a misfire. That he was dealing with a very specific type of grief, one of the hardest griefs imaginable and one that many can't relate to... feels a bit like it undermined the message. And without fleshing out the specifics more, it felt shoehorned in.
This felt like a blatantly overly sanitised and airbrushed portrayal of the childhood experienced by athletes pushed to world-class status from a young age - or before they were even born, as this movie is not hesitant to remind us. There are some hardships portrayed, I guess, but mostly from external factors. The call never seems to be coming from inside the house.
The only glimpses we see of pushy, competitive and unduly critical parenting comes in the form of…
