Broken Diamonds

In tactfully tackling some of the often-sensationalized issues surrounding schizophrenia, Sattler and screenwriter Steve Waverly craft a topical and emotionally accessible film that should easily connect with sympathetic viewers, particularly those familiar with the debilitating effects of chronic mental health issues.

The tone rarely hits its target for dark levity, often making one wonder, “Was that meant to be funny?”

None of this is helped by Platt’s performance, with a petulant eye-roll to every impediment, as if he were the fussbudget Felix of The Odd Couple and Cindy his disaster-prone Oscar.

It strikes not a single authentic chord, and that also goes for the lead performance of Ben Platt, whose overdone theater-kid turn further dooms the material’s stabs at humor and pathos.

The movie treats illness as a series of contrivances, an engine that keeps the plot pistoning forward, and the result of this approach is a film that feels lifeless, or worse, reductive.