Author: Peter Debruge / Source: Variety
Netflix’s “Like Father” is a generic melodrama starring two likable actors best known for their work on TV, which manages to drag out to nearly two hours the predictable story of a work-obsessed woman (Kristen Bell) who gets dumped at the altar and winds up taking the prepaid honeymoon cruise with her estranged father (Kelsey Grammer) instead of the man she planned to marry.
It’s shot in anamorphic widescreen, as if it were intended for the big screen (there’s one shot that justifies the choice), and features bona fide movie star Seth Rogen (who’s hitched to the film’s director, Lauren Miller Rogen), which means that under slightly different circumstances, you could be skipping this movie in theaters rather than on Netflix.Now hold that thought, because I’m going to change the subject to discuss another movie that, if you do your viewing at home anyway, you might check out instead. Two years ago, another female director, Maren Ade, made a Cannes-selected, Oscar-nominated comedy called “Toni Erdmann,” about an incorrigible practical jokester who was kind of a pain and not at all a great dad. This guy decides he wants to fix things with his overachieving daughter, tagging along on a business trip to Romania and making a general nuisance of himself.
It’s a terrific film, full…
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