Review: ‘American Fiction,’ starring Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae and Sterling K. Brown

November 2, 2023

by Carla Hay

Erika Alexander and Jeffrey Wright in “American Fiction” (Photo by Claire Folger/Orion Pictures)

“American Fiction”

Directed by Cord Jefferson

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles and in Massachusetts, the comedy/drama film “American Fiction” (based on the novel “Erasure”) features an African American and white cast of characters (with a few Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An author/professor, who happens to be African American, creates a fake persona as a fugitive criminal to write a book that has racially demeaning stereotypes of African Americans, and when the book becomes a hit, he has to decide how far he will go in living this lie.

Culture Audience: “American Fiction” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and movies that take sharp aim at how people use racial stereotypes to damage others and to make profits.

Sterling K. Brown in “American Fiction” (Photo by Claire Folger/Orion Pictures)

“American Fiction” takes a smart and satirical look at how racial stereotypes are enabled and perpetuated. Jeffrey Wright gives a standout performance as an author who has to choose between keeping his integrity by being his authentic self, or being a demeaning racial stereotype for money. This sharp and incisive movie is also an emotionally touching portrayal of a family trying not to fall apart when dealing with serious illness and grief.

Writer/director Cord Jefferson makes an admirable feature-film directorial debut with “American Fiction.” Jefferson (a former journalist and an Emmy-winning writer of HBO’s 2019 limited series “Watchmen”) adapted the “American Fiction” screenplay from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure.” “American Fiction” had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, where the movie won the People’s Choice Award, the festival’s top prize. “American Fiction” has since made the rounds at several other film festivals in 2023, including its New York premiere at the Urbanworld Film Festival, where Jefferson received Urbanworld’s Visionary Award.

From the very beginning of “American Fiction,” viewers see that protagonist Thelonious “Monk” Everett (played by Wright) isn’t afraid to possibly offend some people, in order to express his point of view. Monk, who lives and works in Los Angeles, is a literature professor at an unnamed university. During a class session, he has written on the board the name of a book that has the “n” word (derogatory term for a black person) in the book’s title.

Monk, who is African American and in his 50s, has assigned the book as required reading for his class, but one of his students named Brittany (played by Skyler Wright) objects to the title of the book being on the board during the class session, because Brittany says that the “n” word is offensive to her. Most of the students in this class are white, including Brittany, but there are some people of color (including some black people) who are students in the class too.

Brittany says she doesn’t want to see that word during the class session, so she asks Monk to erase the word from the board. Monk refuses and tells Brittany sternly about how he feels about the “n” word being in the title of the book: “With all due respect, I got over it. I’m pretty sure you can too.” Brittany then storms out of the class in a tearful huff, as Monk can be heard shouting at the students to focus on his lecture.

The next scene shows Monk having a meeting in an office room with his supervisor Leo (played by John Ales) and two of his faculty peers named Mandel (played by Patrick Fischler) and Gilda (played by Carmen Cusack), who all tell Monk this latest complaint against him has crossed a line where he has to be held accountable. It’s mentioned that Monk previously offended a student of German heritage by asking the student if the student has Nazi family members. Monk is defiant and gets into a little bit an argument with Mandel, who insults Monk for not having any recently published work.

Monk retorts by saying that he’s working on a book for a publishing house named Echo. It’s not enough to impress Leo, who orders Monk to go on a leave of absence that includes an already planned trip to Boston to go to the Massachusetts Festival of Books. Boston is Monk’s hometown, but he tells his colleagues that he hates Boston. It’s probably one of the reasons why he was sent there.

At the Massachusetts Festival of Books, Monk is a speaker on a panel that is sparsely attended. (There are less than 10 people in the audience.) At the end of the panel, when he comments to a fellow panelist on the low attendance for their session, Monk finds out that a much more popular Q&A at the festival was scheduled at about the same time as his panel. This interview is still taking place when Monk goes to the room to see what’s so special about this Q&A.

In the packed room, the solo speaker who is being interviewed is Sintara Golden (played by Issa Rae), an African American author of a best-selling novel called “We’s Lives in the Ghetto,” which is a racially demeaning story about uneducated and poor African Americans in a crime-ridden area. Sintara reads from the book and gets enthusiastic applause from the racially mixed audience. Monk is offended and jealous that this type of book is a hit, while he is having trouble finding a publisher for his most recent intellectual book, which is a contemporary re-imagining of Aeschylus’ “The Persians.”

While in the Boston area, Monk makes reluctant contact with the family he has barely kept in touch with over the past several years. Monk is a never-married bachelor with no children. His widowed mother and two younger siblings are his closest relatives. Without giving away too much information, it’s enough to say that there are many reasons why Monk has been avoiding his family. Monk’s family has a lot of secrets that are eventually revealed throughout the movie.

Several people in Monk’s dysfunctional family are doctors. His deceased father was a medical doctor. His younger sister Lisa Ellison (played by Tracee Ellis Ross) is a doctor at a clinic called Boston Family Planning. It’s a clinic that provides abortion services, which isn’t said out loud in the story, but it’s implied, based on conversations about how Lisa’s job can be dangerous and controversial. Lisa gives Monk a car ride back to the family home in Boston.

Lisa is divorced with no children. She is also a caretaker for their mother Agnes Ellison (played by Leslie Uggams), who is showing signs of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. For example, Agnes forgets that Lisa is divorced. Agnes has a loyal and friendly housekeeper named Lorraine (played by Myra Lucretia Taylor), who is in her 60s. Lorraine is treated like a member of the family.

Monk’s other younger sibling is Clifford, nicknamed Cliff (played by Sterling K. Brown), a plastic surgeon who is a divorced father. Cliff got divorced because his wife found out that Cliff is gay. Cliff is now dating men in the gay singles scene and abusing cocaine. It’s also revealed in the movie that Cliff has an inferiority complex and feels competitive with Monk because Monk was always treated as the favorite child by their domineering father.

Agnes has a house in Boston and a beach house in an unnamed city in Massachusetts’ Martha’s Vineyard region. Through a series of circumstances, the family members are staying at this beach house for much of the movie. During their stay, Monk meets an intelligent and opinionated neighbor named Coraline (played by Erika Alexander), a public defender attorney who respects Monk’s talent and becomes his love interest. However, Coraline has her own messy marital situation. She’s in the midst divorcing her husband Jelani (played by Michael Jibrin), who still lives with her for financial reasons.

“American Fiction” skillfully weaves all of Monk’s challenges that he faces in his personal life and in his career. At the same time that he’s going through some emotionally taxing family issues, he’s having problems finding a publisher for his latest academically inclined book. As a sarcastic joke, Monk decides to use an alias called Stagg R. Leigh to write a racially demeaning novel called “My Pafology” (intentional misspelling of “Pathology”) about African Americans speaking bad English and being involved in crime. (The book’s title is later changed to a curse word.) A thug character named Van Go Jenkins is the narrator/protagonist of “My Pafology.”

In a story-within-a-story construct, “American Fiction” occasionally depicts characters from the “My Pafology” novel coming to life as Monk is writing the book. In one of the book’s chapters, Van Go Jenkins (played by Okieriete Onaodowan) commits an act of violence against an older man named Willy the Wonker (played by Keith David) in Willy’s home. You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to see why Monk chose to write this scenario, considering the complicated relationship that Monk’s father had with his wife and children.

Much to the surprise of Monk and his book agent Arthur (played by John Ortiz), “My Pafology” quickly gets an offer of $750,000 from a book publishing company named Thompson Watt that rejected the intellectual book that Monk wrote under Monk’s real name. It just so happens that Monk needs the money because Agnes has to be put in an assisted living home, and Monk is the only one in the family who is willing to pay for it.

As already revealed in the trailer for “American Fiction,” Monk creates the Stagg R. Leigh persona to be an ex-con who was in prison for violent crimes. Monk also fabricates a story that Stagg is currently a fugitive from the law, which is the excuse he uses for why Stagg has to be so mysterious. Monk and Arthur also tell Thompson Watt publishing executive Paula Baderman (played by Miriam Shor) that Stagg R. Leigh is not the author’s real name because of his “fugitive” status. Instead of being wary of doing a deal with a fugitive criminal, Paula thinks it’s intriguing because she thinks this angle will sell more books.

The lies get more complicated after “My Pafology” is published and becomes a hit. On the one hand, Monk feels elated that he has the commercial success that he always wanted, but on the other hand, he feels ashamed by what he had to do to get this success. It isn’t long before Stagg is taking meetings with a Hollywood filmmaker named Wiley Valdespino (played by Adam Brody), who wants to make “My Pafology” into a movie.

“American Fiction” pokes fun at people who think that they’re being hip and progressive for supporting a book like “My Pafology,” when they don’t know or don’t care that this type of book reinforces a negative stereotype that African Americans and other black people are inferior and have lives defined by violence, poverty, crime and/or trauma. Although these issues are undoubtedly struggles for many people, it’s racially problematic to stereotype one race as largely experiencing those struggles. Through characters such as Monk, Agnes and Coraline, “American Fiction” shows the reality that most African Americans are not poor, uneducated or criminals.

There is diversity among African Americans that is not always acknowledged in entertainment that wants to keep African American-oriented entertainment focused on violence, poverty, crime and/or trauma. And when people who don’t know many African Americans get their ideas about African Americans from these negative stereotypes, it perpetuates a lot of racism. At one point in “American Fiction,” book agent Arthur comments about how black people are often represented in the media and entertainment: “White people think they want the truth. They just want to be absolved.”

The very talented ensemble cast in “American Fiction” should be given a lot of credit for embodying their characters with the right mix of dramatic realism and (when appropriate) pitch-perfect comedic timing. Jefferson’s writing is clever and engaging, while his directing shows a knack for juggling multiple storylines at the same time. “American Fiction” is not a movie that singles out one race as “better” than another. Instead, it’s a blistering but honest examination of how people of all races can be complicit in perpetuating negative racial stereotypes, often for selfish reasons.

Through “American Fiction,” Jefferson has crafted a rare social commentary movie that not only invites people to laugh at these problems without feeling guilty about this laughter but also provokes people enough to show how these problems affect people in damaging ways. “American Fiction” doesn’t get preachy about what can be done about these problems. However, this very worthy adaptation of “Erasure” shows that no matter how much legislative progress can be made in civil rights, change also has to come from within people who are willing to make improvements in their own lives.

Orion Pictures will release “American Fiction” in select U.S. cinemas on December 15, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on December 22, 2023.

Review: ‘Earth Mama,’ starring Tia Nomore, Erika Alexander, Doechii, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Keta Price, Olivia Luccardi, Dominic Fike and Bokeem Woodbine

July 24, 2023

by Carla Hay

Tia Nomore and Erika Alexander in “Earth Mama” (Photo by Gabriel Saravia/A24)

“Earth Mama”

Directed by Savanah Leaf

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, the dramatic film “Earth Mama” features a predominantly African American cast of characters (with some white people and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A drug-addicted, financially broke single mother, who is pregnant and in rehab counseling, goes through various struggles, as she tries to regain custody of her two kids in foster care and has to decide what do about how her third child will be raised.

Culture Audience: “Earth Mama” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching good acting in an artfully made gritty film, even if the movie rehashes a lot of familiar themes about American women living in urban poverty.

Tia Nomore (sitting on floor) and Doechii (sitting on couch) in “Earth Mama” (Photo by Gabriel Saravia/A24)

“Earth Mama” has very impressive acting performances, but it doesn’t offer any new ideas. It over-uses tiresome negative stereotypes of black women as drug-addicted single mothers, while the diversity of black women is muted or ignored in this movie. “Earth Mama” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Although the movie’s technical crafts are admirable, “Earth Mama” has the same old clichés that have been unfortunately used by ignorant people as reasons to believe the lie that most African American women are inferior, stuck in a “ghetto” rut, and doomed to fail in life.

Written and directed by Savanah Leaf, “Earth Mama” is her feature-film directorial debut and is based on Leaf’s 2020 short film “The Heart Still Hums.” Although it’s usually not necessary to point out a filmmaker’s race in a review, it should be noted that Leaf is African American. That’s really no excuse for any filmmaker to perpetuate some of the movie’s damaging portrayals that economically deprived people are a bunch of self-pitying whiners. And to be clear: There is a lot of self-pitying whining in this movie, which comes dangerously close to being offensive in how low-income African American women are portrayed as being of a similar mindset, instead of showing a more realistic variety.

In “Earth Mama” (which takes place in the San Francsico Bay Area, mostly in Oakland, California), single mother Gia (played Tia Nomore) is 24 years old, pregnant, in outpatient drug rehab, and struggling to get by on her low income. She has a part-time job as an assistant at a small photography studio in a shopping mall. The movie unfolds over the course of a few months, like chapters in Gia’s life. Some of Gia’s life before this time period is explained, while other questions that viewers might have about Gia’s past remain unanswered. In the beginning of the movie, which is told in chronological order, Gia is about eight months pregnant.

At a certain point in the movie, what is revealed is that Gia has two other children who are in foster care because of her legal problems and drug addiction. (Viewers find out later that Gia is addicted to crack cocaine and in recovery for it.) Gia’s oldest child is daughter Shayna (played by Alexis Rivas), who’s about 7 or 8 years old. Her middle child is son Trey (played by Ca’Ron Coleman), who’s about 5 or 6 years old. Fortunately, Trey and Shayna are both being taken care of in the same foster home, for now.

Gia has limited and supervised visitation rights with Shayna and Trey. Shayna mostly refuses to talk to Gia, despite Gia’s best efforts to have have a loving and trustful relationship with Shayna. Trey is more receptive to Gia’s attention. Gia wants to regain custody of Shayna and Trey, but the odds are stacked against Gia because of her troubled history and because she can’t afford to take care of these kids.

“Earth Mama” shows Gia as a doting and concerned mother when she visits Shayna and Trey. As a way to bond with these two children, Gia gives sensory rings to Shayna and Trey that match a sensory ring that Gia has. “Earth Mama” doesn’t go into details over the reasons why Gia lost custody of Shayna and Trey, but Gia is on probation and appears to be very remorseful and willing to make amends for whatever she did to cause this difficult situation.

The fathers of these children are not seen or mentioned in “Earth Mama.” Gia says more than once in the movie that she’s not really interested in dating anyone. She also seems bitter and pessimistic about ever finding a true love partner who will treat her with kindness and respect. In other words, she’s been badly hurt by the fathers of her children.

Gia’s closest companion is her best friend Trina (played by Doechii), who is also pregnant and without a love partner. Trina firmly believes that Gia should keep Gia’s unborn child and do everything legally possible to win back custody of Shayna and Trey. Trina is very outspoken with her opinion that if Gia doesn’t raise these three children herself, then Gia is being a “bad mother.”

Gia later befriends a somewhat androgynous woman in her 20s named Mel (played by Keta Price), who meets Gia when Mel helps Gia assemble a baby crib. Mel doesn’t state what her sexuality is, but the movie implies that Mel is probably sexually attracted to Gia, who treats Mel as a platonic friend. A man in his 20s named Miles (played by Dominic Fike) also comes into Gia’s life as a friend.

Gia’s case worker in government social services is Miss Carmen (played by Erika Alexander), who is empathetic about Gia’s situation but she doesn’t coddle Gia. Carmen also encourages Gia to explore her options on what to do about Gia’s unborn child. Carmen thinks the best option would be for Gia to give this unborn child up for adoption.

After initially resisting the idea, Gia meets a prospective adoptive family: a middle-aged, middle-class, married couple named Monica (played by Sharon Duncan-Brewster) and Paul (played by Bokeem Woodbine) and their daughter Amber (played by Kamaya “Kami” Jones), who’s about 15 or 16 years old. Amber has mixed-to-positive feelings about getting a younger sibling through adoption. Monica and Paul are very eager to have another child.

Monica and Paul give Gia a summary of their courtship and marriage. Paul and Monica, who began dating each other when they were college, got married and became parents to Amber when Paul and Monica were still very young. The couple decided to wait to have another child until after they were more financially stable.

Years later, when Monica and Paul felt the time was right to have a second child, Monica had difficulty conceiving. And that’s why Monica and Paul are turning to adoption to have a second child. Although they know it would be easier to adopt a child from a country with less restrictive adoption laws, Paul and Monica (who are both African American) have decided they wanted to go through the U.S. adoption system, specifically to adopt a child who is the same race as they are.

“Earth Mama” shows a series of vignettes in Gia’s life before, during and after she makes the decision of whether or not to give up her unborn child for adoption. These vignettes are very “slice of life,” including some repetitive scenes of Gia at her job, where she mainly makes sure that backdrops and props are prepared when people take studio portraits. There are also several repetitive scenarios showing how financially broke Gia is, such as scenes of her using her prepaid phone and being worried that the phone will soon run out of money.

At group rehab meetings, Gia has to be prompted to open up about her feelings and experiences. These rehab meetings show people telling their sob stories with a self-defeating “woe is me/I’m stuck and I can’t do better” attitude. Expect to hear people complaining about their bad childhoods in these meetings instead of wanting to figure out how to improve their lives.

“Earth Mama” deals with race relations as something to get out of the way in the story, because the movie is more interested in its agenda of getting audiences to feel sympathy for Gia. Race relations in “Earth Mama” are not adequately explored or depicted. In real life, people in Gia’s community and environment would talk a lot more about racism than they do in this movie.

The closest that thing that “Earth Mama” does to show any racial tension is a scene during one of the rehab meetings that Gia attends. White people are in the minority in these meetings, not because white people have less drug problems than people who aren’t white, but because these meetings happen to take place in an area where most of the people are not white. When one of these white attendees—a young woman named Alexis (played by Olivia Luccardi)—begins rambling while talking, Gia expresses some annoyance that Alexis seems to get more time to talk because Alexis is white.

Gia isn’t a very complicated person, but Nomore gives a wonderfully nuanced performance that skillfully expresses many of Gia’s emotions that Gia might not say out loud. Fortunately, “Earth Mama” doesn’t succuumb to two lazy movie/TV stereotypes of black women living in poverty: making single mother Gia always fighting with her “baby daddies,” or having Gia speak like she wouldn’t be able to pass a basic course in English grammar. Gia isn’t academically well-educated, but she can communicate well when she wants to communicate well.

Gia is not saintly—she can be rude and somewhat flaky—but the movie really goes out of its way to distract viewers from thinking about why Gia lost custody of her children. “Earth Mama” has some horror-like elements that show Gia’s nightmarish hallucinations. A frequent hallucination that Gia has shows her pulling out the umblical cord from her body. There are artfully hazy scenes of Gia wandering in a forest. And composer Kelly Lu’s dreamlike piano-based musical score complement the somewhat pretentious way that “Earth Mama” shows urban decay as a type of cinematic art project.

“Earth Mama” obviously wants to have a certain portrayal of African American womanhood. But perhaps the biggest missed opportunity of “Earth Mama” is how it doesn’t do enough to show more diversity of African American women in this environment. Not all low-income African American women see themselves as perpetual victims, like Gia does. Not all low-income African American women see their situations as too hard to overcome, like Gia does. Gia is in survival mode, but she’s also stuck in a cycle of self-pity. Gia also takes for granted that she has access to several free and helpful resources that many impoverished women (especially in Third World countries) do not have.

Alexander’s performance as Carmen is compelling but abbreviated. There are hints that social worker Carmen has a very interesting life and can relate to Gia more than Gia knows, but “Earth Mama” fails to bring more of Carmen to the movie, other than being a concerned and occasionally lecturing authority figure. Potential adopter Monica is another female character who is very underdeveloped in the movie, probably because it would ruin the “Earth Mama” narrative of poor Gia having such a hard life.

People who do not personally know a variety of black women are most likely to hail “Earth Mama” as a very insightful look into the state of black womanhood. Meanwhile, people who personally know a variety of black women—and know that most black women are not single mothers with arrest records and drug addictions—are less likely to charmed by this skewed lens of black womanhood that “Earth Mama” offers. There’s a reason why audiences of all races and backgrounds are turning away from these movies that are about “black people stuck in the ghetto”: These types of movies—which were in abundance in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s—seem played out in modern times, when there is so much more awareness of many real-life black people who do not live and have never lived that type of “ghetto” life.

A24 released “Earth Mama” in select U.S. cinemas on July 7, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on July 28, 2023.

Review: ‘Wildflower’ (2023), starring Kiernan Shipka, Dash Mihok, Charlie Plummer, Erika Alexander, Samantha Hyde, Jacki Weaver and Jean Smart

March 19, 2023

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from left: Reid Scott, Alexandra Daddario, Jean Smart, Charlie Plummer, Kiernan Shipka, Samantha Hyde, Dash Mihok, Jacki Weaver and Brad Garrett in “Wildflower” (Photo courtesy of Momentum Pictures)

“Wildflower” (2023)

Directed by Matt Smukler

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in Nevada (and briefly in Van Nuys, California), the comedy/drama film “Wildflower,” which is based on real people, features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Asians and Latinos) representing the working-class. middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A sarcastic and intelligent teenager, who is in her last year of high school, gets in a coma after a mysterious accident, and she narrates her life story of being raised by intellectually disabled parents whom she resents because they depend on her to be the most responsible person in the household.

Culture Audience: “Wildflower” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and don’t mind watching rambling and disjointed stories about teenagers and bickering families.

Kannon Omachi and Kiernan Shipka in “Wildflower” (Photo courtesy of Momentum Pictures)

Based on a true story, “Wildflower” has an admirable performance from Kiernan Shipka, but there are too many problems with this uneven dramedy, including awkward subplots that go nowhere and underdeveloped characters that are bad parodies of real people. It’s one of those movies that has much of the narrative coming from voiceovers of a character who’s supposed to be in a coma. Very few movies can pull off this type of narrative in a way that is appealing. In “Wildflower,” the coma narration is cringeworthy—and so are many other parts of this misguided film.

Directed by Matt Smukler and written by Jana Savage, “Wildflower” is inspired by the real-life experiences of Smukler’s family. According to the “Wildflower” production notes, the protagonist of the movie is based on Smukler’s niece Christina. As part of Christina’s college admission application to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Smukler made a short documentary film about Christina’s experiences growing up as a child of parents with intellectual disabilities. Savage came up with the idea to make Christina’s story into a scripted feature film. The result is “Wildflower” (which had its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival), but the film takes shameless detours into formulaic schmaltz that cheapens the quality of what could have been a more meaningful movie.

In the beginning of “Wildflower” (which takes place mostly in an unnamed city in Nevada) viewers see Bambi “Bea” Johnson (played by Shipka) is in a coma in a hospital. Bea is 17 years old and in her last year of high school. She has a head injury, but no one at the hospital knows how she got the injury. A flashback later shows how an unconscious Bea ended up at the hospital and what caused her injury. Bea’s voiceover narration tells viewers that she can’t remember how she got injured either, but she wants to tell her life story, based on what she remembers of her life.

Several of Bea’s worried family members have gathered in the hospital room. And because this movie is filled with clichés about bickering families, it doesn’t take long for the arguing to start. The movie doesn’t do a very good job of introducing these family members, who talk over each other and disjointedly show up in this hospital scene that takes place in the beginning of the movie. You probably have to take notes (mentally or literally) to keep track of all these squawking relatives.

Bea is the only child of Derek Johnson (played by Dash Mihok) and Sharon Johnson (played by Samantha Hyde), who have intellectual disabilities. A flashback later explains that Derek got a head injury in a car accident when he was 12 years old. Sharon was born with an underdeveloped brain.

Derek and Sharon used to live in Van Nuys, California. They met when Sharon was 21, and Derek (who was around the same age, maybe slightly older) was hired by Sharon’s parents to mow the family’s lawn. Sharon and Derek began dating each other soon afterward. Derek and Sharon quickly fell in love wither each other, and they eloped—much to the dismay of both of their families.

Sharon’s parents are Peg McDonald (played by Jean Smart) and Earl Edelman (played by Brad Garrett), who are now divorced. (Peg went back to her maiden surname after the divorce.) Peg and Earl are among the family members who are in Bea’s hospital room.

Derek’s parents are Loretta (played by Jacki Weaver) and Hal (played by Chris Mulkey), who are also divorced. Hal is not in the hospital room, but Loretta is—much to the disdain of Peg, because the two women have had a longstanding feud with each other. Derek is an only child.

Peg has another daughter: the materialistic and vain Joy (played by Alexandra Daddario), who has a condescending attitude toward her sister Sharon. Joy and her equally snooty husband Ben (played by Reid Scott) are also in the hospital room. Peg is a control freak who constantly complains if things don’t go her way. Joy is a lot like Peg.

Loretta, who smokes a lot and drinks a lot of alcohol, immediately annoys Peg by lighting up a cigarette inside the hospital room. It’s a very rude (not to mention illegal) thing for Loretta to do in a hospital room, but Peg is the only one in the family with the backbone to stand up to Loretta about it. The movie makes it a running gag that Loretta’s constant cigarette smoking annoys Peg. And it’s a “joke” that quickly gets old and tiresome. Loretta’s obnoxiousness is supposed to look “cute” because she’s a senior citizen, but it just looks grating.

Flashbacks show that after Derek and Sharon got married, both of their parents were worried about Derek and Sharon not being capable of raising a family. During a family meeting between Derek’s parents and Sharon’s parents, both couples agreed that it would be a bad idea for Derek and Sharon to become parents. The purpose of the meeting was to figure out what to do about this marriage that does not have the approval of all four of the newlyweds’ parents. However, there was a big disagreement about what to do.

Sharon’s parents (who raised Sharon as Jewish) thought that Derek and Sharon should get divorced as soon as possible. However, Derek’s parents (especially Loretta) are strict Catholics who think divorce is a big stigma. Loretta suggested that Sharon be sterilized and said that Sharon was a promiscuous temptress who “trapped” Derek into this marriage. (Loretta used cruder terms than that to describe Sharon.) Peg was deeply offended by Loretta’s remarks and has held a grudge against Loretta ever since. Neither of these parents’ schemes became a reality, since Derek and Sharon became parents to Bea and remain happily married throughout this story.

More flashbacks show that when Bea was 10 years old (played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong), her father Derek illegally taught her how to drive. The secret is exposed when Bea crashed the car on a neighborhood street (fortunately, no one was hurt) when Bea went looking for the family dog, which ran out of the house because Sharon left the front door open. Although Bea denied being the driver of the car, Derek and Sharon were declared unfit parents. Joy and Ben (who had become parents of twin sons at this point) got custody of Bea.

Joy and Ben find out that Bea is extremely resistant to their rules and their trendy New Age way of parenting. From a very young age, Bea was expected to handle a lot of responsibilities for her parents, who treated her like a mini-adult who didn’t have the type of rules and discipline that other kids were expected to have. Bea is bratty and rebellious under the guardianship of Ben and Joy. Ben privately tells Joy what he thinks of Bea’s irreverence: “She’s like a feral dog.”

Eventually, Derek and Sharon convince child welfare authorities to let them have custody of Bea again. She has spent her teenage years living with her parents. As a compromise to giving back custody of Bea to her parents, Joy and Ben have insisted on paying for Bea to go to an elite private school.

Derek has problems holding a steady job. He currently works as a janitor at a recreational games center. He also plans to become a rideshare driver. Sharon, who is a gambling addict, was getting disability payments from the government until Derek put a stop to it, because he doesn’t think Sharon is disabled. Bea has a part-time job doing janitorial work at her school, to help pay for her parents’ household expenses, but she gets angry and frustrated because her parents often irresponsibly spend the money that they take from her.

There’s a lot of Bea’s family history to unpack in this movie, but “Wildflower” has a very disappointing way of starting off on one tangent and then not really finishing it before going on to others tangents and not really finishing them either. The results are an erratic, overstuffed movie fllled with a lot of underdeveloped characters, unfinished subplots and unanswered questions. “Wildflower” also has trouble balancing the comedy and drama.

There’s a very distracting and unnecessary subplot about a children’s protective services worker named Mary (played by Erika Alexander), who first met Bea on the day of the car accident. And lo and behold, Mary shows up years later at the hospital, while Bea is in a coma. Even though there’s no evidence that Bea’s parents were responsible for Bea’s head injury, Mary is there to investigate, since Bea’s parents lost custody of Bea in the past.

And so, there are several scenes of Mary awkwardly interviewing people close to Bea. Mary wants to find out who caused the injury, and she wants to determine if Bea’s parents are fit to take care of Bea if she wakes up from the coma and is discharged from the hospital. Mary is inclined to think that Bea’s parents will need help taking care of Bea in Bea’s recovery.

Bea’s life in high school is also told mostly in flashbacks. Before she ended up in a coma, Bea was an outstanding academic student whose favorite subject was astronomy. She’s also a star of the school’s track team. However, she shuns the idea of being a “popular” student. She feels like a misfit at this school, because she comes from a low-income household and because her parents are disabled.

Bea has a guidance counselor at school named Alex Vasquez (played by Victor Rasuk), who has been encouraging Bea to apply to universities to continue her education. However, Bea has been very reluctant because she thinks she needs to skip college to take care of her parents. Bea is also worried about how much college tuition might cost, even though Mr. Vasquez assures Bea that she’s such an excellent student, she should have no problems getting a scholarship. UCLA is one of the universities that Mr. Vasquez suggests to Bea.

Another person who thinks Bea should go to a university after she graduates from high school is Ethan Rivers (played by Charlie Plummer), a classmate who has recently transferred to this high school. Ethan comes from a rich family (his father owns the “largest Porta Potty company in Nevada”), but he downplays his wealth in order to let people know that he’s humble and down-to-earth. Many of the students automatically think Ethan is kind of weird because the word has gotten out that Ethan had testicular cancer that left him with one testicle.

Bea’s best friend at school is Mia Tanaka (played by Kannon Omachi), who is a brainy eccentric, just like Bea. And there’s predictably a “mean girls” clique that bullies and taunts Bea and Mia. This clique is led by an ultra-snob named Esther (played by Chloe Rose Robertson), who is attracted to Ethan, but she’s already dating someone else. Ethan, who’s in the same astronomy class as Bea, tries to get close to her by offering to share his class notes with her, but she rebuffs his obvious interest in her the first time that he talks to her.

Mia and Bea act like they don’t care about being accepted by the “cool kids,” but they really do care, because Mia and Bea tell Sharon to buy alcohol for them (it was Bea’s idea) so they can take the alcohol as a gift to crash a house party hosted by Esther. Also at the party is Esther’s older brother Tyler (played by Josh Plasse), an adult of college age who gets a snide remark from Bea because she says it’s pathetic that someone of Tyler’s age is partying with mostly underage high schoolers. It’s at this party that Bea and Ethan connect for the first time.

“Wildflower” then drones on and on with typical high school drama that sometimes gets very dull. Mia and Bea made a pact not to go to their school prom, but then things change when Ethan asks Bea to the prom, and she says yes. There’s some love triangle jealousy between Ethan, Bea and Esther. And, of course, there’s more arguing between Bea and her parents.

Nowhere does this movie explain why Bea has to do cleanup work at her high school, when there are so many other part-time jobs she could have had that wouldn’t make her feel embarrassed in front of her peers. It all just looks contrived for a scene so that “mean girl” Esther and “snarky underdog” Bea can have a verbal confrontation where Esther tries to humiliate Bea, and Bea makes snappy comments as a comeback. (This isn’t spoiler information. It’s shown in the movie’s trailer.)

The romance between Ethan and Bea is sweet but very rushed and at times hard to believe. Even though Ethan meets Bea’s parents and wholeheartedly accepts them with no judgment, Bea never shows an interest in meeting Ethan’s family, nor does Ethan invite her to meet his family. It’s yet another question that the movie never bothers to answer. Meanwhile, the friendship between Mia and Bea is reduced to superficial scenes of them shopping together and debating about whether or not it’s worth going to their school’s upcoming prom.

There are several talented cast members in “Wildflower,” but only Shipka has a character with layers to a personality. Everyone else just kind of drifts in and out of the story, in service of vapid sitcom scenarios or melodrama that often looks fake. “Wildflower” does the biggest disservice to Weaver, whose aggressively clownish Loretta character is very beneath Weaver’s immense talent.

The movie’s depiction of disabled people sometimes falls into negative stereotypes. “Wildflower” is not unwatchable, but it lacks a clear vision and a cohesive narrative. For a movie with a lot of voiceover narration, it ultimately doesn’t have a lot of interesting things to say.

Momentum Pictures released “Wildflower” in select U.S. cinemas on March 17, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 21, 2023.

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