At first, this film certainly promises something difficult and challenging. But having struck variously angry or black-comic notes in its opening section, it morphs into a piece of indie-sentimental awards-bait for its producer-star Jennifer Aniston. She plays Claire, a Percocet addict who is in chronic pain, given to angry outbursts at her support group and left depressed and conflicted after the suicide of her counsellor, Nina (Anna Kendrick). Claire is drawn into a friendship with Nina’s widow, Roy (Sam Worthington), and remains impossibly difficult with her long-suffering maid and carer, Silvana (Adriana Barraza). Inevitably, the explanation for her condition is left for the third-act reveal, which we reach via the mandatory grieving, healing and self-forgiveness. The relationships and plot transitions feel forced, and the trope of the ironic hallucinatory ghost is glib and cliched (David Cronenberg carried it off more successfully in Maps to the Stars). As for Aniston, she gives an honest, well-intentioned performance, but it is marooned in an unsatisfying script whose emotional effects are unearned.
