'I Love My Dad' cringes its way to impressive impact
Magnolia
If it was just a troubling, one-note idea, “I Love My Dad” might be so off-putting as to prevent you (me) from watching it. A dad catfishes his own son? Gross.
Yet this surprisingly successful comedy from writer-director-star James Morosini is both inspired by something that really happened to the filmmaker and a delicate balance of self-awareness and vulnerability, disbelief and discomfort. Definitely watch it with your parents! (Don’t.)
Chuck (Patton Oswalt) resorts to extreme, revolting measures when his only son Franklin (Morosini), who hasn’t responded to phone calls in a while and recently attempted suicide, blocks him on social media—the last hope for feeling connected. Inspired by his colleague (Lil Rel Howery) who proudly avoided being blocked by an ex by creating a fake profile, Chuck does the same, though rather foolishly makes a fake profile for a real person, a waitress named Becca (Claudia Sulewski) at a diner not far from his house in Maine. Naturally, Franklin and Becca strike up a friendship, and their language eventually gets increasingly … spicy. This can only end well!
“I Love My Dad” has the sot of plot that comes with a few too many inevitabilities in its narrative, and Morosini relies on some contrivances that don’t quite hold up either. Somehow, though, a movie that shouldn’t really work does thanks to excellent performances and the filmmaker’s agility through the material. Whether it’s visually depicting online conversations as spoken dialogue between people in the same place or several moments where multiple characters (including Rachel Dratch as Chuck’s girlfriend) call out the awfulness of Chuck’s plan, Morosini is fully aware of what viewers might be thinking and draws out laughs and sadness from a situation drawn, to say the least, by love and desperation.
Though some might want more detail about the main characters’ behavior and feelings, “I Love My Dad” is streamlined and efficient in pursuing simple desires and complicated emotions. It’s weird and amusing and prickly and kinda nice. I’m going to go play with my kids.
B
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