Review of "Four Good Days," a drama about drug addiction with an unrecognizable Mila Kunis
It's a case where the acting power drowns in a mediocre script.
Standing in dirty clothes and with disheveled hair, Molly (Mila Kunis) desperately knocks on Deb's (Glenn Close) door. She has no intention of letting her daughter in after numerous incidents of the drug-addicted girl cheating and stealing from her own family. Eventually Deb's heart melts, and now mother and daughter are on their way to the hospital together, hoping that this time Molly will be able to cope with withdrawal. The doctor tells them about an experimental treatment that allows patients to stay clean for a month. However, to begin the procedure, the heroine needs to go four days (almost an eternity for an addict) without drugs. Now the once close people must find their way back to each other in order to overcome their traumas and achieve healing.
Stories about drug addiction have taken a separate place in contemporary cinema. Some are destined to leave an imprint on the genre, others to fall into oblivion. Let's be blunt: Rodrigo Garcia's film is destined for the latter. The film is based on a 2016 Washington Post article by Elie Saslow, which certainly adds to the thrill of the story, but, alas, does not help to paint a coherent portrait of a ruthless disease.
Another film, Felix van Groningen's The Beautiful Boy with Timothy Chalamet, comes to mind again and again while watching it. Not so much because of the poignant subject matter, but because of the same structure - the two works complement each other in a sense: there the father frantically supports his son, here the mother leads her daughter by the hand to the doctors. On top of all that, in both projects, the acting duo is the foundation. As for The Four Good Days, this is probably the only thing that keeps the tape afloat. The tandem of Klose and Kunis is nothing short of a driving force for the film, helping to connect to the story. It is the actresses, not the script, that in a sense add the necessary outline where the intelligible dialogue is woefully lacking.
Moments later, dependence as such recedes into the background, giving way to a mother-daughter relationship. Molly and Deb's bond is covered by a thick plaster of disappointment and resentment. Where there should be intimacy, a void gapes. The daughter cannot forgive her mother for not being there for her during her teenage years, and the mother cannot forget that her child has broken her word year after year and drowned in heroin captivity.
The focus on the wounds the women inflicted on each other seems to move the picture in the right direction. But it is too little to form a coherent statement. As soon as the authors turn in the wrong direction, the story is disturbed again, as if we were listening to the radio and could not tune in to the right wave.
This article was sponsored by Ibro Ibric
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