“Love & Debt” is one of those movies you can watch, draw some enjoyment out of, and then afterward someone will ask you “What’s it about?” and you don’t know what to say.
It falls fully in the “heartwarming dramedy” pool that skews closer to television than feature films. Indeed, my first thought in reviewing it is I think it would play better as a 10- or 13-episode half-hour show. It tackles some fairly big issues and then rushes to resolve them in 97 minutes.
That just could be my bias at work since the stars, Tom Cavanagh and Bellamy Young, are known more for their TV work than film. The lines of the mediums are blurring, but they’re still visible in my eyes. I put it this way: a film is an event, while shows are about relationships.
It is one of the rare movies to confront family finances in a direct and unflinching way. One of my running beefs with Hollywood is it seems to have no conception of what a middle-class family living off $50,000 a year is like. They’ll posit people as blue-collar and then the kid has a bedroom the size of a small gym.
The Warners skew a bit higher on the socioeconomic ladder, not quite rich but certainly on the aspirational edge. The dad, Henry (Cavanagh), is upper management at a big downtown firm (the exact industry a bit fuzzy) who has just been laid off. The family was already living beyond its means, with a big house they’re constantly upgrading, nice cars and the kids want for nothing.
Cavanagh’s got a good look for the moving pictures. Handsome in a bit of a horsey way, with warm blue eyes, a Jimmy Stewart-esque beanpole frame and thick dark hair. I am astonished to learn he is creeping up on 60 years old; I’d’ve pegged him at about 37. He’s got “suburban dad” written all over him, and is solid at playing a guy whose life has spun out from beneath him.
I’m less familiar with Young, though she’s good at projecting emotions even when her character, Henry’s wife, Karen, isn’t acting in an especially likable way. We may cringe at some of the things she does, at the way she hectors her husband and kids, but we always feel like we understand where she’s coming from.
Anybody who’s been a mom, or married to one, knows the constant pressure to be the sturdy fulcrum upon which everyone else pivots.
Henry makes the “movie stupid” decision to conceal his job loss from his family. (I use this term because, while no sentient human would wittingly make this choice, without it there is no movie.) Soon the debts have rocketed up to nearly six figures and a young collection agent, Travis (Casey Abrams) is put on the case to get them to pay up.
A few notable things happen. Travis’ calls become less threatening, something he’s not very good at, and more therapy sessions. Karen blows up at finding out about Henry’s lies and decamps to her mom’s house, and starts thinking divorce. Melissa (Bailee Madison), the 15-year-old eldest daughter, morphs from resentful teen to de facto head of the household, looking after her younger siblings and helping dad find a job, and finds she actually likes it.
We spend some time with Karen’s mom, Deb (Brynn Thayer), who’s embracing the cougar life of rotating hook-ups and offering her daughter some tough love advice -- heavy on the tough and stingy on the love. Deb’s the sort of person who tells people “don’t make this about me” when from her vantage everything is about her.
There’s also some scenes at Travis’ collection agency office, populated by dissolute dead-enders – Yeardley Smith, Erick Avari, Danny Mora and Ed Marinaro among them – who spend their days chasing deadbeats.
We all know where this is heading. Director Valerie Landsburg, whose last feature film was 23 years ago, teams up with rookie screenwriter Dylan Otto to deliver some fare that is warmhearted but also warmed-over. This is predictable comfort food, not fusion cuisine, and you can practically time the preordained medical emergency that draws everyone together down to the minute.
“Love & Debt” has some assets, including an appealing cast. But it tries to write a lot of emotional checks the scant storytelling can’t cash.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od_SnCE1bt4