Straight A's (2013) 6/10

Starring : Ryan Phillippe, Anna Paquin, Luke Wilson, Riley Thomas Stewart, Ursula Parker
Director : James Cox
Running Time : 89 mins

Recovering alcohol and drug addict Scott (Phillippe) returns to his home town after ten years in and out of rehab after being prompted by the ghost of his dead mother to return to his family and make amends with his brother William (Wilson), who married his childhood sweetheart Katherine (Paquin) after Scott left her at the altar. He is met with little tolerance from his brother and sister-in-law, but makes an unlikely friend in his nephew Charles (Stewart).

This drama is pretty basic, and doesn’t really go anywhere for over an hour, but then we are faced with the true reasons behind Scott’s visit and this becomes something of a tearjerker. His influence in visiting seems to have been to bring the rest of his family closer together which, I guess, worked reasonably well. This isn’t very deep, and doesn’t explore the characters as much as it could have, and some more humour would have been nice, but it’s watchable.

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