Susan Granger’s review of “Lullaby” (ARC Entertainment)
Painter/sculptor-turned-writer/director Andrew Levitas explores the agonizing process of dying in this New York hospital-set drama. The conflict revolves around Robert (Richard Jenkins), the wealthy patriarch of the Lowenstein family, who summons his two grown children to join his long-suffering wife Rachel (Anne Archer) at his bedside when he decides to go off life-support after a 12-year battle with cancer.
His estranged rock ‘n’ roll musician son Jonathan (Garrett Hedlund) flies in Los Angeles, narrowly avoiding arrest en route when the flight attendants catch him smoking in the plane’s lavatory. Surly Jonathan’s aspiring attorney sister, Karen (Jessica Brown Findlay from “Downton Abbey”), a Yale graduate, has already filed an injunction to thwart her father’s pulling the plug – even before the siblings discover that Robert has given away all his money, leaving them and their mother with very little. Why? “’Cause I raised a couple of spoiled brats,” he explains. Jonathan’s travails are diverted by a hazy subplot involving his ex-girlfriend Emily (Amy Adams) and a far-more-sentimental encounter with Meredith (Jessica Barden), a precociously outspoken 17 year-old bone cancer patient who is bravely facing her own mortality.
Richard Jenkins (“Jack Reacher,” “White House Down”) imbues his slyly manipulative character with genuine humanity, while Garrett Hedlund (“Country Strong,” Inside Llewyn Davis”) struggles with his character’s conflicts, yet performs three solid musical numbers. Jennifer Hudson is borderline cruel as the hospital’s only nurse, while Terrence Howard exudes empathy as the attending physician.
According to Andrew Levitas, the obviously autobiographical reconciliation concept was inspired by his father’s prolonged deterioration from a terminal illness. Unfortunately, Levitas’s solemn exploration of the provocative question of assisted suicide is far too shallow and superficial, becoming contrived and uneven, particularly during a bizarre Seder, hastily celebrated in the hospital’s chapel a week before Passover.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Lullaby” is a grim, grief-filled 5 – with little that’s uplifting to redeem the prevailing mood of despair.
