Family put to the test
MOVIE REVIEW by Don Perlgut. American Jewish actor-writer-director Zach Braff (Garden State) heads to suburban Los Angeles to tackle issues such as parental disappointment, professional failure and illusory dreams in Wish I Was Here.
Braff plays struggling actor Aidan Bloom and is joined by Kate Hudson as his long-suffering wife Sarah and Mandy Patinkin as the wise but flawed Jewish elder Gabe.
Antisocial brother Noah (Josh Gad), living alone in a trailer above Malibu Beach, is a fabulous invention, slowly adding increased depth to the film.
And in Joey King (Ramona and Beezus) and Pierce Gagnon (the telekinetic kid from Looper), Braff has cast two excellent and uninhibited child actors as Bloom’s children Grace and Tucker.
Aidan is the actor who can’t get a new role; Sarah supports the family through a dead-end job with the Water Department, trying to “enable” his dream.
They love each other, but their clichéd and under-written scenes make it seem like they are sometimes appearing in two different movies. Braff’s a likeable guy, but here his passive and depressive character is just about the least interesting in the film.
Braff also does not know how to present the elderly rabbinic leader: is he for laughs, or for taking seriously? Why would Grandpa Gabe insist on and pay for his grandchildren’s studies in a yeshivah rather than the more typical American Conservative day school? He may be steeped in Jewish tradition and own a dog named Kugel, but he does not strike me as a man committed to yeshivah.
I was ready to go away disappointed from Wish I Was Here, but somehow Braff manages to pull the film together in the last half.
He drops the lame humour and organises most of his characters to connect in emotionally satisfying ways. The Bloom family’s historical hurts are carefully revealed, and the film gels, in part because Braff gets out of the way and lets the talented Patinkin, Hudson, King and Gad move onto centre stage.
This quartet saves the film and shows how a pretty good film might have been a great one, given the chance.
Wish I Was Here is currently screening.
PHOTO of Zach Braff (centre) with Pierce Gagnon (left) and Joey King (right) in Wish I Was Here.
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