All We Had

A film directed by Katie Holmes (and produced by Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal) is a curiosity, and in this case a competent curiosity - no less competent than most of the independent films out there.

Ultimately, though, All We Had is exactly the kind of movie of which people say, “Oh well, its heart is in the right place.” A clichéd comment on a clichéd film: what could be more apt?

It’s Holmes brazen performance that remains the chief drawing point in seeking out All We Had. She burrows deep under the skin of Rita, a woman firmly aware of her many flaws and tragically unable to address them.

The adaptation (by Josh Boone and Jill Killington) lacks any inference, mystery, or discovery: it is all text. Any complexity that there may be is all on the surface. Problems are easily solved, since there's nothing left unsaid, or if something is left unsaid that Ruthie says it for us in the voiceover. This makes for predictable viewing.

The directorial debut of actress Katie Holmes, starring herself as Rita, a drunk single mother living out of her car, is the latest well-intentioned yet lousy-with-clichés treatment in the hard-luck-woman subgenre.

The film’s haphazard episodic structure never coheres.

The ultimate effect of the film’s hackneyed material is as debilitating as it is frustrating.