Film

Great, just what we needed: another rote exercise in indie-feely humanism. Actor-director Terry Kinney’s dramedy starts raising red flags the moment that its concussed Chicagoan hero (Broderick) returns to his rural hometown to take care of his senile uncle (Alda). So far, we’ve got a likable loser and a cranky-cute oldie, both with short-term-memory problems; all that’s required is a sweet, understanding woman as a romantic interest—come on in, Virginia Madsen!—and a slightly offbeat excuse for a healing road trip. Like, say, a rare baseball card potentially worth millions that the elderly relative wants to sell in the Windy City. Did we mention the “fish poetry” that Alda’s coot composes via a typewriter attached to baited hooks?

It would be shallow to feel superior to such an earnest character study if they all weren’t just symbols of Midwestern kookiness, or if Kinney and screenwriter Sherwood Kiraly (adapting his own novel) didn’t work the damaged-goods scenario so strenuously. Even the name cast doesn’t add much depth, with Broderick staying in his schlubby comfort zone and Alda stuck in a Walter Brennan impersonation. Only Madsen scores points for subtlety, yet the presence of the Sideways siren merely reminds you of what someone like Alexander Payne might have accomplished with such sympathy-for-the-underdog material.