Sometimes, if you just follow an actor/actress around in a cinematic sense, you are bound to come across some rough road. The reason why Norman is such a patch of film is because its focus is too intense and it cannot justify the feel-good compromises it adheres to.
The narrative goes about the life of a suffering high-schooler, who has just lost his mother in a car accident and whose father is dying of cancer. Within the midst of all this, he meets the gorgeous Emily, a new arrival in his high-school, who for no apparent reason other than his Monty Python savvyness and a terribly depressing speech about suicide clings on to him in a very happy-go-lucky kind of way. Unfortunately, she amounts to little more than a caricature for the rest of the film, as is the case with all the other supporting characters.
Norman's pain is portrayed in a convincing manner by Dan Byrd and Richard Jenkins complements him very well in the role of his father, a duo of suffering and misanthropy. Additionally, Emily Van Camp's "Emily" shows quite a bit of promise in the first couple of scenes, but then just fades into the murky background. Unfortunately, I found the premise of the movie to be hard to accept and its consequent predictability and need for an optimistic conclusion harmed what could have been a strong if extremely bleak story.
It brought "World's Greatest Dad" to mind as far as the social comments on perception are concerned, but it lacked the conviction to explore this matter thoroughly. As such, Norman doesn't really say much and never finds a much needed balance to bring it "home".
The narrative goes about the life of a suffering high-schooler, who has just lost his mother in a car accident and whose father is dying of cancer. Within the midst of all this, he meets the gorgeous Emily, a new arrival in his high-school, who for no apparent reason other than his Monty Python savvyness and a terribly depressing speech about suicide clings on to him in a very happy-go-lucky kind of way. Unfortunately, she amounts to little more than a caricature for the rest of the film, as is the case with all the other supporting characters.
Norman's pain is portrayed in a convincing manner by Dan Byrd and Richard Jenkins complements him very well in the role of his father, a duo of suffering and misanthropy. Additionally, Emily Van Camp's "Emily" shows quite a bit of promise in the first couple of scenes, but then just fades into the murky background. Unfortunately, I found the premise of the movie to be hard to accept and its consequent predictability and need for an optimistic conclusion harmed what could have been a strong if extremely bleak story.
It brought "World's Greatest Dad" to mind as far as the social comments on perception are concerned, but it lacked the conviction to explore this matter thoroughly. As such, Norman doesn't really say much and never finds a much needed balance to bring it "home".