Henry Herschel (Jason Sudeikis) is a by-the-book architect in New Orleans. His pregnant wife Penny (Jessica Biel) is intrigued with neighborhood kid Millie Pearlman (Maisie Williams). She makes him promise to help her despite his reluctance. Penny dies in a car crash. Millie is an orphan living with her uncaring uncle collecting junk to build a raft to sail across the Atlantic.
The funeral is when the movie starts going off its tracks. Everybody is trying to be quirky while Henry is a sad sack in a depressing funeral. The tones are clashing so hard. The sad death is never far away which makes all the quirkiness rather tone deaf. Making Penny pregnant only adds to that dichotomy. Then enters Maisie Williams who is determined to test out her accent work. She's not the only one. It quickly becomes a rolling mess of incongruous parts as Henry works through the stages of grief. If the movie could strip away some of the more annoying parts, the two leads could work as a heart warming duo although they can get boring. BTW, that boat ain't making it.
The funeral is when the movie starts going off its tracks. Everybody is trying to be quirky while Henry is a sad sack in a depressing funeral. The tones are clashing so hard. The sad death is never far away which makes all the quirkiness rather tone deaf. Making Penny pregnant only adds to that dichotomy. Then enters Maisie Williams who is determined to test out her accent work. She's not the only one. It quickly becomes a rolling mess of incongruous parts as Henry works through the stages of grief. If the movie could strip away some of the more annoying parts, the two leads could work as a heart warming duo although they can get boring. BTW, that boat ain't making it.