The House (2017 film)
2017
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Dec 22, 2017 · 4 min read. “Father Figures” is what you might call a bastard comedy, and not just for the fact that it was once boldly titled “Bastards” and tells of two twins (played by Ed Helms and Owen Wilson) road-tripping to find their biological father.
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Brothers Kyle and Peter Reynolds were raised to believe that their dad died when they were young. They're shocked to discover that their mother lied about his death because she never knew who the...
- (48)
- Lawrence Sher
- R
- Comedy
Father Figures brings nothing new or innovative to the table, but it follows the formula well and delivers a perfectly fine movie. Ed Helms and Owen Wilson star as twin brothers who discover that their father, whom they were told died before they could know him, isn't actually their father.
- A family nightmare.
- Verdict
By Alex Welch
Posted: Dec 22, 2017 2:00 am
It’s almost impossible to really describe what kind of a film Father Figures actually is. On one hand, it’s a vulgar, absurdist comedy, but on the other hand, it tries to be a dramatic story about the relationship between two brothers and how they must move past the mysteries of their parentage to grow closer together.
Under the guidance of an experienced director and with a well-balanced script, it’s possible that a film like Father Figures could exist and be a successful studio dramedy. Unfortunately, Father Figures does not have a steady enough foundation to pull off such a complicated and ambitious construction.
Coming from longtime cinematographer and first-time director, Lawrence Sher, Father Figures focuses on the lives of Peter (Ed Helms) and Kyle Reynolds (Owen Wilson), two polar opposite twin brothers who not only look nothing alike, but also have completely different personalities. Where Peter is a hard-working doctor that’s never quite gotten over the death of his father from before he was born, Kyle is the kind of confident free spirit that drives Peter nuts. Not to mention that while Peter had to work for his career and money, Kyle has been able to spend years living off the royalties of a popular barbecue sauce, which uses his likeness on all of their labels.
Peter and Kyle are forced to grow closer together, though, when they discover that their mother (Glenn Close) had lied to them about their father being dead, because according to her, she didn’t actually know who their father was when they were born. This sends the two brothers on a cross-country mission to try and track down their father, in the hopes of finally having the kind of father-son relationship that they’d missed out on their whole lives. And as you can likely expect, what follows is a screwball road trip adventure that sends Peter and Kyle into increasingly more convoluted and ridiculous situations as they meet all of the men who may or may not be their long-lost father.
Father Figures is a baffling film, one that never seems to ever get a handle on what it is or what it wants to be. It’s one thing to make a movie about characters stuck in arrested development, unsure of where they’re going, but it’s another for the writing and editing to also feel that way. In short, Father Figures is just a straight-up mess.
- Alex Welch
Dec 21, 2017 · ‘Father Figures’: Film Review. Owen Wilson and Ed Helms play brothers looking for the father they never knew in Lawrence Sher's 'Father Figures,' with Glenn Close as their evasive mother.
- THR Staff
Father Figures: Directed by Lawrence Sher. With Robert Mello, Ed Helms, Retta, Zachary Haven. Upon learning that their mother has been lying to them for years about their allegedly deceased father, fraternal twin brothers hit the road to search for him.
Parents need to know that Father Figures is a raunchy comedy about twin brothers (Owen Wilson and Ed Helms) who go on a road trip to discover their birth father's identity. Violence (often played for laughs) includes fighting, cars hitting people, trains crashing into cars, and guns.
