Parenthood

Directed by Ron Howard, Parenthood follows several characters, including Steve Martin’s Gil, Rick Moranis’ Nathan, and Jason Robards’ Frank, as they’re forced to deal with a series of problems involving their close family members. Filmmaker Howard, working from Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel’s screenplay, delivers an engaging and often engrossing picture that benefits substantially from the efforts of a uniformly superb cast, with Martin’s predictably captivating work as the movie’s ostensible lead matched by such top-notch periphery performers as Keanu Reeves, Dianne Wiest, and Tom Hulce. The pervasively watchable atmosphere is perpetuated by an ongoing emphasis on segments and subplots of a decidedly compelling nature (eg Gil attempts to assume the role of a birthday clown to satisfy his son, Wiest’s Helen tries to connect with her withdrawn, sullen son, etc), and it’s clear, too, that Howard does an effective job of blending the more comedically-tinged aspects of Ganz and Mandel’s script with several sentimental, almost melodramatic encounters and interludes. (There is, for example, a moving sequence in which Helen’s aforementioned son opens up to Reeves’ laid-back Tod.) By the time the satisfying conclusion rolls around, Parenthood has certainly confirmed its place as a better-than-average ensemble endeavor and, without a doubt, one of Howard’s very best movies.

***1/2 out of ****

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