Review: ‘Everything’s Going to Be Great,’ starring Allison Janney, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Bryan Cranston, Jack Champion and Chris Cooper

July 12, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Everything’s Going to Be Great”

Directed by Jon S. Baird

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1989 to 1990, in Ohio, New Jersey, and Kansas, the comedy/drama film “Everything’s Going to Be Great” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and on Asian person) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A husband and a wife, who have opposite personalities and work as managers of regional performing arts theaters, juggle conflicts in their marriage and conflicts between their two teenage sons, who also have opposite personalities.

Culture Audience: “Everything’s Going to Be Great” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of stars Allison Janney and Bryan Cranston and sometimes-quirky stories about people who love musical theater.

“Everything’s Going to Be Great” sometimes struggles with balancing comedy and drama in a story about an eccentric family of regional theater managers. However, the principal cast performances enliven an occasionally trite and wandering narrative. The family dynamics in the movie are consistently believable.

Directed by Jon S. Baird and written by Steven Rogers, “Everything’s Going to Be Great” had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The movie takes place from 1989 to 1990, in Ohio, New Jersey, and Kansas. “Everything’s Going to Be Great” was actually filmed in the Canadian province of Ontario.

In the beginning of “Everything’s Going to Be Great,” it’s the spring of 1989 in Akron, Ohio. Buddy Smart (played by Bryan Cranston) is in a middle-school principal’s office with his 14-year-old son Lester “Les” Smart (played by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) and Principal Franklin (played by Cady Huffman) in a meeting to discuss some disciplinary issues about Les at this school. Les is a school misfit who has made some people uncomfortable.

As Principal Franklin explains to Buddy, during a physical education class that was discussing angina during a CPR training session, Les blurted out that “Vaginas make his flesh creep,” says the principal. In Les’ history class, he was assigned a one-page report on the Manifest Destiny. Instead, he turned in a nine-page musical titled “Les Wiz,” set during the French Revolution and inspired by “Les Misérables” and “The Wizard of Oz.”

Buddy scoffs at these complaints and doesn’t think that they’re serious enough for the school principal to have this meeting. “Isn’t nine pages better than one?” Buddy somewhat sarcastically asks Principal Franklin. The principal asks Les to leave the room so that she can talk to Buddy privately.

Principal Franklin tells Buddy that he has to consider the possibility that Les is gay. She says it in a tone as if being gay is something to be ashamed of or is a mental health problem. Buddy says defiantly, “In theater, we don’t care about people’s race or sexuality. [We care] only if they are talented.” Principal Franklin tries to finish the sentence by saying the word “Christian” when Buddy says “talented.”

In the hallway, outside the principal’s office, Les imagines that he sees the late playwright/composer Noël Coward (played by Mark Caven) and is having a conversation with him. Les has these types of short imaginary conversations with different deceased celebrity entertainers throughout the movie, including actress Ruth Gordon (played by Chick Reid), actress Tallulah Bankhead (played by Laura Benanti) and playwright/novelist William Inge (played by David MacLean). It’s a fairly cute gimmick that is sometimes distracting in this movie.

After the meeting with the school principal ends, Les complains to Buddy, “I hate this school. No one gets me.” Buddy tells Les, “You’re a weirdo. It’s not their fault.” Buddy also says that when he was Les’ age, he was an actor too and didn’t fit in at his school either. Buddy assures Les that Les will find “his people” when he goes to high school.

How much of a musical fanatic is Les? During live performances at the theaters that his parents manage, Les frequently walks on stage uninvited and unannounced and joins the cast in performing. An early scene in the movie shows Les doing this type of “stage crashing” during a performance of “Fiddler on the Roof.” These interruptions annoy the cast, crew and Les’ mother, but Buddy is more tolerant because he understands Les’ enthusiasm.

Things in the Smart family household are also fraught with tension because Buddy and his wife Macy Smart (played by Allison Janney) are financially struggling and are having many arguments about it. Although the spouses share a love of musical theater, they have opposite personalities. Buddy is an optimist who believes that their problems will eventually be solved. Macy is a pessimist who has become jaded and bitter that they haven’t been able to achieve their dream of producing Broadway musicals.

Buddy and Macy are also fundamentally different when it comes to religion. Buddy is an atheist or agnostic, while Macy is a devoutly religious Christian. Conversations in the movie give indications why Buddy is not religious. It’s mentioned that Buddy’s single mother abandoned him when he was 4 years old, and he was raised by two aunts who were religious fanatics and very cruel to Buddy.

Buddy and Macy have another son—16-year-old Derrick (played by Jack Champion)—who is the opposite of Les. Derrick is a popular football player with a steady girlfriend at his high school, he hates musical theater, and he’s very heterosexual. When an opportunity comes up for the Buddy and Macy to relocate to New Jersey to manage the regional Barn Theater, Derrick is the only one in the family who doesn’t want to move from where they live in Ohio. “All I want is to play football and lose my virginity,” Derrick says.

This job opportunity comes with risks and challenges. It’s a temporary job where the Barn Theater’s owner Ed Monroe (played by Michael Hanrahan) has hired them for the summer to see if Buddy and Macy can boost the theater’s dwindling business. If Buddy and Macy and turn around the theater’s fortune for the better, the spouses will be hired on a permanent basis and get the opportunity to manage his Players Theater in Milwaukee.

Buddy is the most enthusiastic person in the family about this new job offer, but Macy is worried and isn’t easily convinced that it’s is a good idea. For starters, they can’t afford a place to live in New Jersey. And if they don’t get hired on a permanent basis, they’ll be financially ruined.

After some back-and-forth arguing between the spouses, Macy agrees to this relocation. Les is obviously excited about the move because he doesn’t like his life in Akron. In New Jersey, the Smart family ends up illegally squatting in a house. Macy found out through a real-estate connection that the house’s owners will be away for a while and don’t have anyone checking up on the house.

“Everything’s Going to Be Great” shows what happens when the Smart family unexpectedly has to move in with Macy’s farmer brother Walter (played by Chris Cooper) in Macy’s home state of Kansas. The movie takes a much more serious tone during the scenes where the family is in Kansas, and the focus shifts to how Les and Derrick adjust to life at their Kansas high school. Simon Rex has a small but pivotal role as a Barn Theater actor named Kyle.

“Everything’s Going to Be Great” has many of its best-acted scenes with Cranston as Buddy, an unconventional dreamer who is a loving parent but who is often so consumed with his passion for musical theater, it’s taken a toll on his marriage. Whether Buddy is playing bagpipes with Les on a front lawn or encouraging Les’ musical aspirations, it’s a great depiction of unconditional parental love. Janney gives a realistically acerbic performance a Macy, who has become resentful that her life did not turn out the way that she expected and who has insecurities about her physical appearance.

Ainsworth’s portrayal of Les is impressive, even though the movie seems like it can’t decide between telling the story from Les’ perspective or the perspective of his parents. Les’ imaginary conversations with some of his dead idols sometimes seem out-of-place and make him look like a “twee fantasy” kid when there could have been a better exploration of his creative side. There’s that brief mention in the beginning of the movie that he wrote a “Les Wiz” musical, but then the movie doesn’t show any more indications that Les has an artistic side to him, other than being an actor. Any flaws in “Everything’s Going to Be Great” are outweighed by the movie’s mostly capable and engaging way of depicting a family that you can easily imagine as being inspired by people who existed in real life.

Lionsgate released “Everything’s Going to be Great” in U.S. cinemas on June 20, 2025. The movie was released on digital and VOD on July 11, 2025.