Chris Barsanti

Sadness is layered on top of sadness in Mike Mills’s seriocomic account of a determinedly gloomy young man’s (Ewan McGregor) coming to terms with the death of his recently-out-of-the-closet father (an Oscar-worthy Christopher Plummer). It comes incrementally at first, parsed by a stuttering narrative that can’t seem to decide what the film is actually about, but by the end is washing over you in choking waves. There is little movement here, rather a lot more running in circles, much like the admittedly adorable Jack Russell, Arthur, who is able to speak to the mourning protagonist in subtitles. Were it not for a trio of magnificently calibrated performances, the whole thing would be less than unbearable…