Based on gossip columnist Jeannette Walls’s 2005 memoir, this glossy, generic adaptation reunites Short Term 12 collaborators Brie Larson and director Destin Daniel Cretton. A shame, then, that Larson is the weak link here as the adult Jeannette, a born-again neoliberal in an 80s power suit, failing to integrate her rich, boring boyfriend into her unconventional family. Flashbacks explain that Walls spent her childhood on the move, running from debt collectors with her artist mother (Naomi Watts), clever, drunken father (Woody Harrelson, magnetic but edged with mania), and three siblings. Anchored by a warm, controlled performance from Ella Anderson as the pre-teen Jeannette, the film is at its most interesting when it’s a commentary on the American poor. It’s much less effective when it dips into cliches about alcoholism and abuse.
