Filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton launched two careers in 2013 with his empathetic at-risk teen drama “Short Term 12”: his own and Brie Larson’s. Then mostly known as a comedic actor, with roles in films like “21 Jump Street” and “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World,” Larson convinced everyone of her dramatic chops in her “Short Term 12” performance, which paved the way to a deserving Oscar win two years later in “Room.”
Considering their alchemy, it’s little wonder the duo reteamed for “The Glass Castle,” an adaptation of Jeannette Walls’ 2005 memoir about her severe family dysfunction. But it’s almost as if “Short Term 12” was a fluke — “The Glass Castle” has none of the dynamic vibrancy and revealing, emotional intelligence of Cretton’s winning sophomore effort. Worse, the drama wants to frame itself like a coming of age fairy tale about an “unconventional” family, when the reality is far more nightmarish. You should be calling child protective services on this movie within its first fifteen minutes.
READ MORE: Brie Larson Is Haunted By Her Past In First Trailer For ‘The Glass Castle’
Clearly, Cretton has an affinity for discarded youth, and “The Glass Castle” centers on many similar themes of abandon and neglect found in “Short Term 12.” Yet, his movie plays it safe. It’s as if the filmmaker was overly respectful of the material to the point he creates more of a familiar, paint by numbers experience. “The Glass Castle” depicts a lot of misery, but produces little life.
Set in 1990s New York City, but spending the bulk of its time in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Cretton’s picture tells the story of the Walls family led by the cruel, alcoholic Rex (Woody Harrelson), his complicit wife Rose Mary (Naomi Watts), and their poor, suffering children Jeanette (Brie Larson, with unfortunate ’90s style hair), Brian (Josh Carus), Lori (Sarah Snook) and Maureen (Brigette Lundy-Paine). But “The Glass Castle” is told through the eyes of Jeanette and nearly all of it in conventional flashback. When Jeanette sees her parents digging through the trash in present day New York City, a sense of overwhelming shame triggers her to revisit her traumatic youth through painful recollection. Thus, Cretton’s film cuts between timelines to mixed results (and Larson’s character should really be spending the entirety of the current day movie in therapy).
Rex is abusive and volatile, and his exploits frequently force the destitute family to flee when he can’t pay the bills and the debt collectors or police are hot on their heels. Their constant, on-the-run existence is unsustainingly bohemian. Living out of their car and wandering across the United States in search of stability, every “adventure” turns into unpredictable chaos creating fear, uncertainty and eventually resentment and anger from the children as they grow into young adults.
Strong performances can’t mend the film’s many fractured flaws or the many excuses it makes for its careless parents who often put the kids in grave danger due to their carefree, libertarian indifference. The gifted Brie Larson is strong, but given half the movie takes place in the past, her only meaty scenes are in the last act. Harrelson, too, is persuasive at the charming, mercurial and nasty father, but the movie only affords him the chance to act vindictive, creating a one-note dimension to his role. The true stand-out of the film, and one to watch, is Ella Anderson as the young Jeanette. She’s really the beating heart of the drama, but the movie mistakenly insists it’s really Larson’s character that is its center, much to the film’s detriment.
Further unfortunate for “The Glass Castle” is its draggy pacing, which is felt over the two-hour plus runtime. You have to wait for what feels like hours before the narrative returns to Larson coming to terms with her pain, bitterness and even love for her family.
Intimate, but never actually involving, “The Glass Castle” at least has admirable performances to watch. Yet, much to its near embarrassment, halfway into the third act, the story begins to unravel with an emotionally dubious sense of forgiveness that doesn’t convince. Not to mention it suffers from contrivances, mawkishness and offensive apologies for brutal behavior.
In a truly insulting change of heart, after nearly two hours of depicting Rex as a viciously intoxicated, cruel monster, the movie suddenly tries to paint the patriarch as an eccentric, fun loving guy who’s been rough, but always believed in his children. Sure, he’s been a bastard the movie says, but after a few turning points we won’t reveal here, Larson’s Jeannette conveniently receives a flood of good memories that shifts the movie into a tone of reconciliation that is sentimental, treacly and phony. It even has the audacity to produce a magical sheen to the past with slow motion affectations and an undeserved swelling score.
It’s weak moralizing justification that forgets a very young and innocent Jeanette was gravely burned in an accident due to shocking parental laxity. It’s only in the remaining twenty minutes or so that the movie attempts to express its warm nostalgia for what we were meant to believe were horrible times, but it undoes nearly all of the director’s genuine intentions of telling a story of pain and compassion.
Cretton’s trademark sensitivity shines through, but unfortunately, the crackling connection and vibrant humanity in “Short Term 12” doesn’t reflect here with much emotional integrity. The film’s late-stage romanticizing of an offbeat and “idiosyncratic” upbringing is unpleasant as the drama makes the same distasteful excuses as its characters. In the end, the movie cannot reconcile the irreparable damage it’s done to itself and in its final false moments, “The Glass Castle” shatters, leaving its best qualities on the floor in scattered pieces. [C-]