Tropic Sprockets / Boundaries

“Boundaries” by director Shana Feste (Country Strong) is a comedy-drama road film based on the director’s own screenplay. While it is somewhat quirky and offbeat, it is conventionally safe and melodramatic, failing to rouse empathy. This is standard fare about a family with issues meeting various characters.

Jack (Christopher Plummer) is an aging father kicked out of a retirement home. He calls his daughter Laura (Vera Farmiga) hoping for a place to stay. Laura dreads this, being that her life is hectic with her eccentric son, Henry (Lewis MacDougall) and her nearly half dozen rescue animals.

Laura suggests driving dad to her theatrical sister JoJo (Kristen Schaal) in Los Angeles. Jack gets in the car with a duffel bag full of pot, not to mention many pot-filled diapers.

Laura frequently hollers and yells and none of it is very believable. Farmiga is a fine actor, having done solid work in “The Conjuring” and “Higher Ground” but here she is transparent and forced. Within minutes it seems, Jack is on his way to sell pot at a Buddhist retreat with several furry friends in tow.

Laura has a craving to confront Henry’s shallow and uncaring deadbeat dad (Bobby Cannavale) and jumps in his bed. This doesn’t make much sense, since he isn’t mentioned all that much in conversation. Where Henry is concerned, the character doesn’t emote much. He is a mixture of odd spaced-out kids from other films: a trace of Dwayne from “Little Miss Sunshine” and Harold from “Harold and Maude.” The best thing about him is his art work. which is bold and eerie with a macabre energy.

Plummer has the best lines. Yet even so, one gets the feeling he is idling a bit and coasting along. His tongue is in his cheek. At one point he stops by his best friend’s house, inhabited by Christopher Lloyd who acts in a Doc Brown / “Back to the Future” manic whisper. Much of the light humor is focused on pot and getting old. Jack stops to see another seasoned pal, Joey (Peter Fonda), who acts of course like Wyatt from “Easy Rider.”

“Boundaries” has the best intent from Plummer and Farmiga, but with the drug dealing, the dysfunction and the rescue pups, it remains pure formula and falls flat. Though we are no doubt on the road, this trio doesn’t take us anywhere exciting or new.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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