At the film’s start, Hedlund’s character, the scruffily handsome Jonathan, is sneaking a cigarette in an airplane bathroom. He’s clearly a mess both physically and emotionally, but has retained enough traces of his charismatic former self that he successfully sweet-talks a flight attendant out of reporting his violation. This early scene actually does more to define his character than his actions throughout the rest of the film.
Like so many of Levitas’ characters, Jonathan is a cliché: a trust fund kid turned failed rock star turned aimless and cynical twentysomething. As he returns home to New York on a red eye from Los Angeles, he must reflect on his vague estrangement from his father, an esteemed financial wheeler-dealer played in flashbacks by a toupeed Richard Jenkins. In the present day, Jenkins’ efforts as the dying Robert Lowenstein represent the majority of the film’s emotional weight.
Being an actor of great nuance and versatility, Jenkins manages to convey a lot while in a tough spot. He’s lying in a hospital bed most of the time he’s on screen, but still finds the sly humor in his character—along with the remorse and the healing power of reconciliation—with just the slightest lift of an eyebrow or modulation of his voice. He definitely elevates the material beyond what’s on the page, and he finds subtlety where it’s mostly lacking.
Also gathered at Robert’s bedside are his loyal and weepy wife, Rachel (Anne Archer, stuck in a one-note role), and the couple’s aspiring-lawyer daughter, Karen (Jessica Brown Findlay), who has filed an injunction to prevent her father from taking himself off life support. Later, Robert will require Karen to present formal arguments against his plan in his sterile but spacious hospital room; this is meant to be a climax of sorts but instead feels distractingly stagey. Findlay (as the younger overachiever) and Hedlund (as the older disappointment) do enjoy one decent, middle-of-the-night bonding scene, but their characters still remain types.
Jonathan also finds time to trade quips with Jennifer Hudson as the obligatory sassy nurse who works day and night without any breaks because she serves as a crucial source of humor and the voice of reason. While Hudson’s character is clearly a device, Terrence Howard is given even less of a personality as Robert’s trusted physician, who’s willing to carry out his wishes. But Jonathan spends the majority of his time away from his father’s bedside, as the clock ticks down with two women who function even more as obvious, screenwriterly ideas than full-fledged people.
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