Critic Reviews

The movie is a very sincere and good-hearted adaptation, but it loses focus by trying to include too many elements of the real-life story.

Levi plays Scott as somewhat smarmy and disingenuous — it’s hard to feel for this guy when he seems absolutely clueless about his own kids. Fahy carries the film in her supporting role, an acting imbalance that seems weirdly apt for this story: the supportive, capable wife sidelined in favor of showcasing the inept husband getting himself together and presenting it as meaningful or poignant.

Mainly the story, set in Oklahoma, dispenses its lessons in gratitude, self-forgiveness and sobriety with straightforward sincerity. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it lands with a thud.

The Unbreakable Boy will satisfy the terminally vanilla moviegoers, but the rest will see right through its game.

The strength this film exists to celebrate is directly contradicted by the weaknesses of its storytelling.

It's a film that largely rests on an edifice of clichés, contrivances, and ungrounded choices, needing greater development to actually land.