Film

As if parents losing a child weren’t enough drama, screenwriters John Burnham Schwartz and George (adapting Schwartz’s best-selling novel) double the dosage by switching between the bereaved family and the agonized, self-loathing hit-and-run driver who killed the boy.

College prof Ethan (Phoenix) and his wife, Grace (Connelly), stop for gas on the way home from an idyllic day with their two kids. Son Josh (Curley) gets out of the car to let loose a jar of fireflies. Distracted driver Dwight (Ruffalo), who’s bringing his own son home from a baseball game, hits Josh, but keeps going. Dwight fears that the accident will give his ex-wife the excuse she needs to terminate his visitation rights.

Ethan’s grief slowly turns to rage, and he seeks the help of an attorney to prod the police. In an unbelievable twist, the lawyer turns out to be Dwight, who suffers deeply as he tries to nudge the police to find…himself. Just to make it worse, Dwight’s ex-wife (Sorvino) is the music teacher of Ethan and Grace’s daughter. Talk about a small town. The actors convey grief and anxiety effectively, but they can only do what the script instructs, and when improbabilities pile on top of implausibilities, they’re as stuck in this grief machine as we are.