Delayed Reaction: Four Good Days

Premise: A mother struggles to keep her adult daughter clean for long enough to get a treatment that will help her.

 

The things I do for the Oscars. I saw this movie listed on Hulu for several months. I considered watching it a few times because I like Glen Close and Mila Kunis. I hadn’t watched it because I’d heard mixed to negative things and, when a movie has that kind of cast and topic and gets dumped, I get suspicious. When this earned the stray “Best Original Song” Oscar nomination, I decided to give it a try.

 

My opinion of this movie is strained shrug. It’s not awful. I wouldn’t even call it bad. It’s the kind of movie that clearly aimed higher than it reached. I imagine this was envisioned as Glenn Close’s next Oscar play. It’s also a classic case of an actress (Mila Kunis) going ugly in hope of critical praise. It doesn’t work though. To start, Close and Kunis really don’t look like mother and daughter. I’m often pretty good at turning my mind off about that, but I couldn’t get past it here. Kunis is weird because she’s somehow too gnarly and too glamourous in this. Most of the time, I feel like I’m watching a beautiful actress with some makeup on. She looks actress thin more than strung-out thin. The teeth are interesting, because they are disgusting. That’s a success. They are deployed more for shock value though. Seeing them only a couple times feels like a half-commitment. Like they were afraid of that becoming the lasting image of Kunis in the film.

 

I never bought the history of Kunis’ addiction or the strain of her relationship with her mother. All the surface-level stuff is there. Close has the security system in the house and mentions all the times Kunis robbed her. It was missing some of the fatigue though. I don’t feel like Close has been through all this a dozen times before or why this time is different. This is the kind of movie that lives or dies on the small moments and details. That’s where this movie is lacking.

It’s really unfair to call this movie an Oscar nominee. This is the kind of movie that’s best to be forgotten. It’s there to keep Close sharp for her next nomination and to show casting directors that Kunis is willing to try something out of her comfort zone. It’s not meant to be remembered. With an Oscar nomination though, now it’s the kind of movie that someone could stumble on and say “Well, if it got an Original Song nomination that means it must’ve been good enough for Oscar consideration elsewhere.” It’s not.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don’t Recommend