Goodbye, Hello

Firstly, this is not a comedy, not even close. Drama, sure. A good drama, not really. Technically, the production is low budget but not cheap. The direction is solid but unremarkable. The script has moments but there are lots of odd interactions. The acting ranges from pretty good to really bad. The main character "Nate", his, as played awkwardness is at times way over the top and cringe inducing. Once he settles down the dialogue and interactions become more believable. His dialogue and sometimes delivery is erratic and does not make sense. The nurse, "Amal" is very well played and she salvages he film.

It's so rare that I wanna drop a movie so fast, not even ten minutes in because I dislike a character so much. He is such a douche, an immature man boy who has no social awareness of when to better shut up it's upsetting just to watch him dig himself deeper when he could've just played it cool but being quiet. He's basically got verbal diarrhea of the worst kind. Amal isn't helping things either, she does have a short fuse and cannot hold herself back. Either way, thank god somehow things improved in the middle.

Maggie is unpleasant too and even more out of touch with reality, I'd say she's the entitled one of the two, of course, she was clearly daddy's little girl, while Nate was probably the punching bag.

And yes, Gene is an a-hole of the highest caliber, clearly, and probably the reason why his son is so maladjusted and awkward.

The ballet scene was movie magic and it kind of came out of nowhere. And realistically speaking there's no way you could get this good in just one year of ballet at eight. But still, the movie got better and Amal saw a different side to Nate. I had a hard time with Nate and Amal, it seemed fake to me how she opened up to him just like that. She is half manic pixie dream girl and I have no tolerance for those anymore. I did say half though.

The funeral was nice, right?

Full disclosure I watched this on the plane coming back from 2 months in Saudi Arabia and they shut the screens off when we landed and started looping ads while we were stuck on the tarmac waiting for a spot to park the plane for about 30 minutes. I am about 2/3rds to 3/4 through this and I really would like to finish it. I was just on my way to look for a stream when I noticed the ratings are at 5.4. There was no way I was going to not come rate it a 10/10 just to offset the bad reviews even having not watched the ending. The writing is good, the acting is good. I think the writers demonstrate grace, intelligence, and most importantly empathy. It is a very beautiful film so far. The actors most certainty understand their characters. Good job to the director for their part in that. This film is very underrated, and those who rated it poorly need to grow up a bit. I would feel incredibly proud to have worked on this movie if I had. It is a meaningful and very human story. It has depth and grace, thank you for making it. To the writers please keep it up, same to the director, cinematographer, crew, and actors. I leave this review to be an encouragement to the those that worked on it, and hopefully convince someone who is not completely dead inside to go watch it. It's a pretty decent film, well done.