Cast: Bryan Cranston, Allison Janney, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Jack Champion, Simon Rex, Chris Cooper, Laura Benanti

Written By: Steven Roger’s

Directed By: Jon S. Baird

Release Year: 2025

Audio Description Produced By: Alpine Group

Written By:

Narrated By: Tansy Alexander

What Is it: A teenager (Ainsworth) attempts to come of age, but isn’t quite sure in which direction. he’s disgusted by the word vagina, but also isn’t certain which way he leans. His troubles are exasperated somewhat by his absurdist upbringing as the youngest in a theatrically minded family, whose patriarch (Cranston) eats, sleeps, and breathes theatre, while his once supportive wife (Janney) has noticed their bills are becoming harder to pay, and their eldest son (Champion) just wants to play football, even though he isn’t good at it, and lose his virginity like a typical teenager. When they have to relocate due to work, everything is thrown into upheaval, but it’s going to be great, right?

What Works: I’m someone who loves music theatre naturally, so this film felt right up my alley. I felt seen. I felt targeted. It is striving to be one of those deeply quirky comedies, in the vein of early Wes Anderson, or Michel Gondry. I was reminded of the film Running With Scissors. The youngest, Les, speaks to apparitions of historically significant theatre folk, and seems to want to be the best version of himself, but applies acting techniques to it. For example, he’s uncomfortable around girls, so when he gets advice from an older boy who has no problem with the ladies that he imagines he has a foot long penis, Les. Does. The film manifests a giant penis on this kid, cartoonishly, like he sees his ghosts.

He also gets called to the office a lot, for things you would hope your school wouldn’t call you to school for a conference over. This can be amusing. Ainsworth does a solid job here, as he has been in the past in Netflix’s The haunting Of Bly manor. Ainsworth is set to play link in the upcoming live action Legend Of Zelda film, which feels like a good choice. Even though Cranston and Janney are billed as leads, it’s his film, and his coming of age story.

the rest of the cast is all fine, even if they’ve had better roles before. it’s hard to say Cranston’s role comes anywhere close to Walter White or Dalton Trumbo, while Janney’s role can’t even touch her latest foray’s into shows like the Diplomat and Palm Royale. They both are elevating the work, instead of the work elevating them.

What Doesn’t Work: it feels like family circus. It is like a collection of ideas, that someone has tried to connect together with a plot, to present in film form. This whole thing likely would have worked better as a half hour sitcom, where each quirky idea could be attacked separately, instead of tossed into this hodgepodge. It’s a film I truly thought I’d be the outlier on, and end up loving, but it is just a mess. I’m not familiar with the director, but I think a more capable director, like Anderson or Gondry, would have likely fixed a lot of the narrative problems.

There’s a curveball thrown about halfway, which doesn’t even get the emotional resonance it deserves. It just gets rushed through, and then at the end, the film asks for an emotional payoff it didn’t earn. It isn’t a terrible film, just a flawed one, and unfortunately one whose flaws weigh it down, much like a foot long penis seems to for our protagonist. Also, while I know we’ve been watching raunchy teen comedies for years, there’s something a little off about manifesting certain things that give me an ick factor. It’s a joke that needs no visual reference. Simply instructing Ainsworth to change the gate of his walk to something akin of John Wayne would have worked. We don’t always need to go where we think to make a joke work.

The Audio Description: No idea where the Aspen Group came from. They sound like they should be giving me financial advice. Assuming what made it into the description did actually happen on screen, then this was solid. Notably, I was a bit shook by the penis depiction, but I also thought the choice to refer to the ghosts (or visions) that Les sees as something other than ghost, which I’ve since forgotten. I remember liking it, but I apparently have the attention span of a squirrel.

Why You Might Like it: There isn’t a bad performance here. If you like your families to be as quirky and off beat as possible, this certainly fits that bill. It is a coming of age movie that also isn’t made exclusively for teens, like American Pie, but rather one that gives the adults enough of a focus, there’s plenty to follow outside of school.

Why You Might Not Like it: While its hard to say this specifically has been done better, because it is so specific, there are quirky families doing these types of things in other films and TV shows that have worked better in the past. It feels like a film that started as a string of ideas, either on notes, or by having friends sit down and play “wouldn’t it be funny if…”,, and then trying to figure out some plot to connect all those ideas. it ends up feeling disjointed and emotionally compromised.

Final Thoughts: it is always bold to title something like Everything’s Going To Be Great, optimistically believing it will be. In the end, everything was, unfortunately, not.

Rotten: 5.2/10