Goodrich

US, 2024, 110 minutes, Colour

Michael Keaton, Mila Kunis, Carmen Ejogo, Michael Urie, Kevin Pollak, Vivien Lyra Blair, Danny Deferrari, Laura Benanti, Andie McDowell

Directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer

The title is the surname of the central character with its interesting and evocative implications of both good and rich.  In fact, the film could be seen something of an allegory about the rich, gaining the whole world, the danger of losing one’s good, one’s soul.

As we watch Goodrich, we are reminded that many politicians on retirement, sometimes surprisingly early, claim that they need time for being with their families.  This film is a strong reassurance that this should be so.

In the opening minutes, Andy Goodrich, another fine performance by Michael Keaton, wakes to find his wife phoning him that she has gone into rehab because of prescription pills addiction.  He is shocked.  He does not believe it.  He has never noticed.  Which means that the film is the unmasking of Andy Goodrich, his discovering the self-centredness, self-focus of his life, his career, always busy, taking his family for granted.

And he has nine-year-old twin children coming to realise how much he has been absent from their lives, especially as they question him about their mother, about his own attitudes towards them, the little girl being precociously questioning and observant.  He has to find more time to be with them at home.  From his first marriage, he has a daughter in her mid-30s, married to a doctor, now pregnant, Grace (Mila Kunis).

Part of the unmasking is his growing realisation of the difficulties in his relationship with his daughter, her devotion to him, his downplaying her doctor husband as a nerd, her complete exasperation while he calls on her help and time, finally revealed in a scene of an extraordinary outburst, emotional truth-telling towards her father, saying afterwards that she regretted, not what she said, but saying it out loud.

Then there is the Goodrich Gallery, a boutique gallery in Los Angeles, fostered by Andy for decades, but falling on hard times, money loans, art not selling, then, at one joyful moment, the possibility for all his problems to be solved by getting a contract on the estate of an artist who has died, almost there, but…

There is a great deal of feeling in this film, written and directed by Hallie Meyers Shyer, daughter of two prominent directors, Nancy Myers and Charles Shyer, who made films with some of these family themes.

A reviewer described the film as “endearing”.  Andy Goodrich is not always endearing but our invitation to share his self-discovery and emotional honesty with him is endearing.  The final image of him is as a grandfather holding his newborn granddaughter.  There is hope.

By Fr Peter Malone, MSC

Published: 22 November 2024