All that is to say, Come to Daddy<\/em> comes from a couple of filmmakers with singular taste, and whose work is usually a matter of style and moxie over substance. If you\u2019re on that wavelength, Come to Daddy<\/em> can be a freaky, rollicking good time. If you\u2019re not, no amount of convincing is going to get you there. Timpson\u2019s movie takes a while to get to its actual plot and the action therein. Once that final act hits, the effect is something like a hallucinogen kicking in: it\u2019s a lot of crazy at once, some horrific, some darkly delightful, but all of it compelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elijah Wood plays Norval Greenwood, a pretentious L.A. scenester who\u2019s come out to a remote, unnamed coastal location at the request of his estranged father. Norval hasn\u2019t seen his dad since his early childhood, when he abandoned Norval and his mother. He\u2019s hopeful that the letter could be the start of a relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The man Norval meets, however, doesn\u2019t make that reconciliation easy. Brian (Stephen McHattie) is a bitter alcoholic who resents Norval\u2019s presence, and seems to detest everything about him. To be fair, there\u2019s a lot to dislike about Norval, from his namedropping to his ego-boosting to his idiotic haircut. He\u2019s got problems, but he\u2019s not an awful person. So why send that letter in the first place? Norval\u2019s attempt to answer that question takes the plot veering in violent, unexpected directions that are best experienced cold. Suffice it to say that Harvard\u2019s script doesn\u2019t just avoid clich\u00e9s; it goes off the beaten path entirely, waving its arms erratically while doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much of Come to Daddy<\/em> rests on Wood\u2019s shoulders — or rather, his big, emotive eyes. Timpson makes excellent use of Wood\u2019s baby blues, which betray Norval\u2019s vulnerability, anxiety and fear at various times, as well as the lost kid within. They\u2019re so important a feature in helping us connect with Norval that two other characters bring them up in separate instances. Putting so much of the emotional weight of the film on him almost feels unfair, as if Wood\u2019s childlike face is a resource Timpson is only too happy to exploit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Wood does a lot of the work, he\u2019s not the only one putting forth epic effort. The always-welcome McHattie gets to use his wild eyes and intense features to their fullest extent as Brian. Indie horror staple Michael Smiley is both frightening and ridiculous, committing to some wonderfully goofy dialogue. Unexpectedly, Martin Donovan also shows up in a role I won\u2019t spoil, though his natural geniality makes him feel somewhat misplaced here; he belongs in a much gentler movie than this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Come to Daddy<\/em> is a somewhat disjointed movie, with the transition between its three acts so jarring that it almost feels like three different stories. That issue can almost be forgiven by the film\u2019s bananas climax, but that feeling of disconnection returns as soon as the adrenaline subsides. As a first outing from Timpson, it\u2019s a good start, and certainly remains true to his tastes. Whether those particular tastes align with yours, you\u2019ll have to decide for yourself. Knowing a little about Come to Daddy\u2019s creative pedigree is probably the biggest indicator of your potential reaction to this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":13330,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,340],"tags":[1098,162],"class_list":["post-13326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-movie-reviews","tag-movie-review","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22911,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13326\/revisions\/22911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
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