Four Good Days

It seems like a lot of the movies that screened at the Sundance Film Festival last year are finally getting a wide release after being postponed due to Covid.  I remember being really intrigued by Four Good Days at the time (even though I ultimately picked other films) so I decided to see it last night.  Molly (Mila Kunis), a heroin addict for the past ten years, randomly shows up on the doorstep of her mother, Deb (Glenn Close), who refuses to let her in.  Deb has spent years trying to help her get clean, including fourteen stints in rehab, but Molly has always relapsed and this has wreaked havoc on her entire family, including her step-father Chris (Stepehen Root), her father Dale (Sam Hennings), her sister Ashley (Carla Gallo), her ex-husband Sean (Joshua Leonard), and her children Colton (Nicholas Oteri) and Chloe (Audrey Lynn).  Deb ultimately relents and drives her to a clinic where she detoxes for three days.  A doctor at the clinic offers Molly the chance for a monthly shot of Naltrexone, which eliminates the craving for opioids, but she needs to be drug free for one week in order to be eligible for it.  Since she needs to stay clean for four more days, Deb allows her to move back home.  These four days are fraught with tension as the two of them give vent to the simmering recriminations in their relationship.  This is a fairly typical addiction movie such as we have seen many times before (Ben is Back and Beautiful Boy are much better explorations of how parents cope with children who are addicts) and it has the usual story arc but the material is elevated by the performances of both Close and Kunis.  Close is incredibly poignant as a mother who loves her daughter but is torn between desperately wanting to help and knowing that her help won't make a difference in her daughter's recovery.  Kunis is almost unrecognizable in a gritty and authentic performance that is one of her best, especially in a scene where Molly speaks to a high school health class about the realities of addiction.  This was not quite as good as I was expecting it to be but it is still worth checking it out when it becomes available as a VOD on May 21.