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James and Tara eventually meet up with James’s father (Dennis Hopper), what we learn about James and Joleen’s past is devastating. The film finally veers into melodrama in its climax, but by then it has successfully built up the psychological profiles of its characters, and we’re sold on what happens.
It’s ultimately a hopeful film that, if you buy into it, puts you in one of those pensive good moods. I didn’t really see the point in the last thing James does – and his message to Joleen is a disappointingly blatant cliché, a placeholder for something more profound that the writer never came up with – but the film has previously been so consistent in avoiding missteps that we find ourselves echoing one of the movie’s themes: hey, nobody’s perfect.
Movie Grade: B
Synopsis:
The drama follows an 11-year-old girl's struggle to come to terms with her mother's abandonment.
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