Unexpected phone rings received in the middle of the night aren’t usually the bearer of good news. In “Home Again” writer-director Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s middling LA-based dramedy “Goodrich,” the title character (played by Michael Keaton) learns it the hard way. A call from his wife wakes Andy Goodrich up in the wee hours, informing this shocked, aloof husband (who hasn’t even noticed that she wasn’t home) that she’s checked into a Malibu rehab for 90 days to address her addiction problem, leaving Andy to care for their 9-year-old twins. Also, she tells him she’ll be leaving him as soon as she’s out.
Affecting with his mournful gaze, expressively arched eyebrows and the signature mystique of his husky voice, an understated Keaton carries this insightful and generously composed opening, proving that the septuagenarian actor is as game for material grounded in earthly concerns as he is to re-create his frisky “Beetlejuice” flamboyance. This opening also happens to be among the best pieces of writing that Meyers-Shyer (daughter of renowned filmmakers Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer) has in store throughout “Goodrich,” charged with the kind of narrative economy that intrigues the viewer about the juicy story to come.
Through these moments of tracing Andy’s escalating attempts to understand the seriousness of the situation, we learn that he hasn’t exactly been a model husband or father — not to his young twins Billie (Vivien Lyra Blair) and Mose (Jacob Kopera), and certainly not to Grace (a wonderful Mila Kunis), his daughter from his first marriage, who’s now expecting her own child. Having always prioritized his work in the art world as a gallery owner, Andy still mixes up his kids’ names and doesn’t have a clue about his wife’s drug dependency, when everyone else in his circle seems way ahead of him in sensing that something was up with her habitual pill-popping.
The caliber of the writing “Goodrich” fluctuates considerably after this arresting introductory segment, as scenes unfold like mini episodes — some, skillfully rendered, others, flat and trite — that Meyers-Shyer’s script unevenly steers. At its core, her story feels like an ode to ensemble-driven domestic fare (picture an R-rated “We Bought a Zoo”), honoring the importance of family and communal camaraderie as Andy finds his true place amid the many roles he’s expected to play. In some sense, it’s the kind of thoughtful cinematic comfort food we don’t get much of anymore: a movie with a reliable cast you’d casually stroll into on a whim, and leave satisfied. Except, a rambling impression hampers the good intentions of “Goodrich,” making one crave for something leaner, with a firmer handle on pacing.
Instead, the film frequently drags and begs for some compact montages, the kind that punched up many a Shyer-Meyers movie, like “Baby Boom.” Here, an excess of material diminishes the film’s humor and poignancy, though many of the story’s characters are colorful enough, when they aren’t written too artificially.
Young Billie (and the guiltless Blair, who’s stuck with some impractical lines) gets the short end of the stick here, with an over-precocious vocabulary and mannerisms that are cringingly beyond her years. (An example? “Dad, if you don’t want me to talk like I live in LA, then don’t raise me in LA,” the little girl sarcastically snaps when Andy critiques her erroneous usage of the word “like.”) Thankfully, the more elegantly written Grace negates some of this miscalculation, as the fish-out-of-water Andy comes to depend on her with the twins, to help with chores and as moral support when his ultra-chic independent art gallery’s financial problems intensify. Elsewhere, Terry (Michael Urie), a recently single aspiring actor and dad who’s heartbroken after his husband’s departure, joins Andy’s circle of friends, infusing the movie with a lighter feel.
A major plot point of “Goodrich” revolves around whether Andy could win over the estate of a recently deceased Black artist, now managed by her feminist, New Agey daughter Lola (an alluring Carmen Ejogo), and save his cherished gallery from closing. This struggle happens alongside Andy’s attempts to make good with a rightfully ambivalent Grace, who’s never experienced the kind of present father that Billie and Mose now seem to enjoy. Meyers-Shyer is specific and articulate about the relatable disappointments of Grace, who nonetheless supports her father’s final shot at saving his career while navigating the challenges of her pregnancy and her iffy future in entertainment journalism. The writer-director also displays some dexterity in portraying Grace’s fulfilling marriage with Pete (Danny Deferrari), giving the couple one of the loveliest marital harmony scenes since Pixar’s “Up.”
Meyers-Shyer’s on-the-page precision sadly doesn’t extend to some other parts of her film. We meet the staff of Andy’s gallery through several disjointed scenes that don’t add up to an emotional whole. Her occasional comic-relief treatment of Terry comes dangerously close to a dated gay-best-friend cliché at times, while the Lola storyline feels like an elongated plot device generated to serve Andy’s self-discovery. Though it’s refreshing to see a powerful Black woman unafraid to articulate and demand her (and her mother’s) worth, Lola exits the story too harshly and abruptly.
On the whole, “Goodrich” is all ups and downs — a lot like Andy’s life — making you stick around for the much better movie it frequently teases, but never quite becomes.