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amfanl
Reviews
Old Dads (2023)
It's a horror movie with some fun commentary sprinkled in
I picked that title because Bill Burr has a joke about The Titanic being a horror movie for men. That's what this movie is too. Except it's a horror movie for unmarried men.
I like the social commentary of how fearful younger generations are of standing out as well as the friendship between the guys. But that's only one half of the movie. The rest is a romance/relationship story that is very unappealing and made me question while watching if two of the three guys would stick with their wives if they didn't have children. Meanwhile the character arc for the third character is deciding he needs to man up and marry a woman he's having an "Oops" baby with. So same story, but he's at the start of the marriage nightmare. And going by how much this divorced dad delayed the choice he REALLY knew what he was in for.
Manning up is best way to phrase what the three main characters are forcing themselves to do. The movie shows marriage as something awful and these men grit their teeth and advance towards it.
(To point at where this is coming from. Months of public humiliations by an awful person is front and center for the plot in this movie. And the wife just smiles and nods her head in the crowd each time he's raked over the coals. Then when it gets to him again she dared, DARED to criticize this as his anger issues and kicks him out of the house and might divorce him for being so "out of control."
Like she hasn't been in the audience watching that nightmare for the past however many months. And like she hasn't snapped at an awful person during the course of the movie too. No, things will only be right between them when the main male character admits he's wrong and swears to get help and become the better man she needs him to be...
I watched that guy die inside over the course of this movie for an awful woman who was never there for him like he was for her and their child. And this is just one of the relationships in the movie. There is another that is equally horrific.)