Critic Reviews

Boundaries, to be sure, delivers you to a place you know you’re going, but there should always be room for a movie that does that this well.

Boundaries breaks no fresh ground and sags into conventional story beats on autopilot, but it’s rewarding enough to hang with these characters and roll with their mudslinging.

Despite committed performances all around, Boundaries stays firmly rooted in the meh. Much as we want to root for Laura, her constant whining about her unhappy childhood wins no empathy and drags things down.

It all bumps along, as road trips do, through silliness and boredom and occasional, unexpected charm. But Feste’s story never really gets the rhythms right, and Boundaries finally reaches the end of the road, feeling like nothing so much as a missed opportunity.

It’s another one of those films, like “Book Club,” in which the cast far outshines the material.

Boundaries would be a lot more charming if it was anything remotely an organic story instead of being glued to a template.

The dialogue and performances are far more interesting than the lazy, cliche-ridden story Feste cooked up.

Boundaries ends the way most road trips do — by running out of gas. But being in the presence of Plummer these days is always time well spent.

Plummer is particularly good, delivering every line of dialogue as if it’s improvised, and with an astringent snort that only partially hides the fact that Jack really does care about people. Farmiga, for her part, never strays into histrionics, although she comes close after allowing herself to be seduced by her caddish ex.

Just when you're ready to throw in the towel, Plummer does something that keeps you going; maybe it's the quietly affecting way Jack turns up the twinkly charm as age and illness are starting to take things away. Then there's Farmiga's ability to mine a laugh out of angst and yet remain human, and MacDougall's sly, sleepy charm.