When dad “Chris” (Scott Eastwood) and her aunt “Jenny” (Willa Fitzgerald) are killed in a car accident, the young “Clara” (Mckenna Grace) finds her relationship with her now widowed mum (Allison Williams) becoming a bit strained. This might also be because she has recently started seeing local school heart-throb “Miller” (Mason Thames) who already has a girlfriend and so might just be a bit one-track minded? Also on her radar is her mother’s long term friend “Jonah” (Dave Franco) who was married to “Jenny” and so is now also grieving as he attempts to bring up his newborn baby. “Jonah” happens on some clues that explain, pretty uncomfortably, just why their respective spouses were in the same car and that changes their dynamic, a change they decide to keep from the young “Clara”. What chance they can keep their bombshell to themselves though - especially as their own relationship is looking like it is about to enliven? With the scene set, we focus mainly on the two teenagers and it becomes something shockingly cheesy. There’s way, way, too much dialogue and with Franco largely sidelined it becomes one of those predictable family melodramas that never really addresses any of the elephants on the room; takes a fairly cavalier attitude to grief and makes very little attempt to add depth to any of it’s principle characters especially that of “Miller” (whose closing scene creeped me out a little, too). It looks good, but is insubstantial fluff that ought to have gone straight to a streamer and Clancy Brown has come a long way from his time as the menacing “Kurgan” - and not in a good way, either. Regretting or forgetting? Both would seem to apply here.

***Mckenna Grace coming-of-age in the suburbs of northern Georgia*** Petite blonde Mckenna was 18yo during shooting and she’d turn 19 a month after wrapping. I bring her up because she plays the almost 17yo protagonist, Clara, and is one of the movie’s highlights. She’s winsome and precocious, not to mention she dresses in an attractive way without looking like a streetwalker. I’d put her in the same class as Kiernan Shipka, who’s over 7 years older; or maybe Hayden Panettiere when she was young (RIP). Yet this is more than just a coming-of-age flick, as it’s just as much about Clara’s mother (Allison Williams) and the situation in which she finds herself. Speaking of which, the film starts out in a conventional way but soon pulls the rug out from under you with inventive writing. I don’t want to say anymore because it’s best to go into this knowing as little as possible. Sure, later on there are a couple of predictable bits, so what else is new? On the masculine front, Dave Franco stands out as a Clark Kent type while Mason Thames is effective as Clara’s potential beau. Clancy Brown is also on hand as Gramps. At the end of the day this is a quality drama with lots of emotion that smacks of real-life, yet it doesn’t forget to be amusing when fitting. It leaves with a good feeling rather than a sour taste.    It runs 1h 56m and was shot Mar-May 2025 in areas east of Atlanta (Covington for some key scenes, Clarkston for the coffee place, Duluth for the high school, and Decatur for the cemetery), but also to the south of the metropolis in Morrow (the cinema, located next to the Southlake Mall). GRADE: A-