by Scott Batchelor, Contributing Writer
Going into a movie called Fatherhood leaves very little to any avid moviegoer to wonder what they are going to be in for. All the classic tropes of “babies are hard amirite?” are here, but this movie is more than that, and thankfully so. Fatherhood handles grief and love in a harmonious way that, while the old tricks don’t add anything new, the emotion Kevin Hart brings to accepting loss when the world keeps moving, makes this a slightly above average streaming movie.
Produced by Sony and streaming on Netflix, Fatherhood tells the story of how a recently widowed father, Matt (Hart), raises his newly born daughter, Maddy, after his wife tragically dies shortly after giving birth.
The movie opens at the funeral for Matt’s dearly departed and at first I applauded this movie for not focusing on the death as that is not what I thought this movie was going to be about. And literally no sooner do I make that note than we flashback to the hospital where we are introduced to the soon to be dead Liz (Deborah Ayoinde) chastising Matt for not being a good enough father because he didn’t put the crib together. This is supposed to be the beginning of showing Matt is unprepared as a father, but the movie has trouble finding a good balance of Matt being unable to take care of his daughter while also not being so incompetent that child services should be called.
When we do the flash back to before the death, I thought it was a cheap ploy to pull at the heartstrings, but hats off to them for pulling it off for a number of different reasons. Kevin Hart really brings it this time around. Being a straight to streaming movie, he could have phoned it in, but when he gets the news of his wife’s death, it hurts. His confusion, fear, and brokenness shine through, and his performance is a major high spot in this movie. In one scene, he barges into a new parents support group that only has new mothers in it, and he is able to pull off frustration, anxiety, anger, and humor all at the same time. I think with any other actor, this movie loses the range that Hart shows in his performance, but I can say that any of the scenes or situations that do not work are not the fault of the leading man.
Hart really has to pull off grief at multiple stages as this movie is broken up into two halves, which is what helps make it stand above similar movies. The first half is everything you would really expect from a movie dealing with being a parent. Matt has trouble sleeping because the baby is crying, he falls asleep at work during meetings, and you guessed it, bathroom humor! So. Many. Poop jokes. Because that’s what babies do and boy, how funny is that? Bathroom humor is just low brow, and when dealing with babies, it’s cheap and easy. There is the traditional montage of Matt trying to live his life but can’t because, you know, baby. There is a small comedic bit where people keep asking where the mom is and Matt makes up outrageous lies, which plays nicely and is good to see that not everything has to be tired jokes about how messy babies are.
Speaking of where the mother is, the other theme of this movie is handled well. It really doesn’t gloss over the fact that this family just had a major loss. Matt struggles with his mother-in-law, (Alfre Woodard) not trusting him and being overbearing, while also being self-aware enough to realize that he needs help. His support system in his two friends Jordan (Lil Rel Howery) and Oscar (Anthony Carrigan) is terrible, and what is supposed to be played for laughs comes out flat. Jordan’s character trait is he is single and likes to flirt with everything and Oscar doesn’t stop talking. Oscar is actually an oddity to me because I am not sure if his lines are supposed to be funny and failing, or if the character is supposed to just be bad at being funny. Both Jordan and Oscar are bad friends and not much is in this film to show any real redeeming qualities.
As for the second half of the movie, it came at the absolute perfect part of the story. I paused it to see how much time was left and was scared because we hit a lot of classic tropes in only half the run time. I had no idea where the rest of the film could go. Thankfully, they jumped to six years later to show Maddy (now played by Melody Hurd) is six-years old and in kindergarten, which brings a whole new set of troubles.
Matt struggles with how to raise Maddy as a single father and it seems like over the past six years, he wrestled with whether he was doing what was right and what his wife would have wanted. He sends her to the school she would want Maddy to attend, lets her challenge authority like the school dress code, and be a part of his life as much as possible like when they play poker with his friends. But still this movie falls into material we have seen before.
Matt is now starting to feel like he can enter the dating game again when he meets Lizzie… which is the exact same name as his deceased wife. This same name thing is barely addressed and leads to nowhere, which kind of is a good explanation for this character as a whole. Of course the single parent has to meet someone new so we can have conflict between the child and the new parental figure. And then we have the conflict of Matt trying to live his own life, but as soon as he does, Maddy gets into trouble and he begins to blame himself for situations no adult would be able to prevent. These are ideas that have been explored in every television show and movie when dealing with kids.
But as tired as these tropes are and as by-the-numbers as the movie turns out to be, the chemistry Hart has with Hurd is charming. Their interactions feel like the camera kept rolling and it was just two people hanging out. Hurd holds her own in expressing emotion in very real moments of frustration and anger as she tries to come to terms with her life not being the same as her two-parent friends; and that mix of real pain with classic humor keeps this from really feeling like it drags. The acting alone makes this a recommend from me. This movie sets a tone from the beginning and makes sure to mix the hurt and humor all the way through. You are not going to see anything groundbreaking with Fatherhood, but it pulls off being charming enough to keep you invested.
Grade: B