The Greatest

The Greatest raises compelling questions about how parents continue on after the death of a child.

First-time writer-director Shana Feste has made an uneven but often affecting film that requires its gifted cast to push hard against the script's schematic plotting to find moments of real emotion.

Brosnan, who finds the truth in his character, is quite affecting. And Mulligan, gamely defining a surprisingly undefined young woman, is like a sunbeam piercing the gloom.

A histrionic mess.

Unfortunately, though its heart is smack in the right place, The Greatest tends to play more like a collection of appropriate, well-acted scenes than as a fully satisfying narrative.

The Greatest often feels like a mash-up of Sarandon's greatest grief hits.

Not even the skillful performances of its stars, Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan, playing the boy’s parents, can cover up the mysterious gaps in continuity of a screenplay whose thudding dialogue spells out every emotion while refusing to clarify many crucial plot details.