Staying Fit
Rating: PG-13
Run time: 1 hour 46 minutes
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Stars: Robert Forster, Greg Kinnear, Emily Mortimer, Bradley Whitford
Director: Greg Kinnear
In his directing debut, Greg Kinnear, 56, plays Phil, a depressed Portland, Ore., dentist in a comedy that's also as serious as a heart attack — or rather, as serious as suicide. The topic is all too relevant for grownups: Suicides in the U.S. increased 30 percent from 1999 to 2016, with the biggest increase among middle-aged Americans.
In the first scene, a takeoff on It's a Wonderful Life, Kinnear's Phil stands on a Portland bridge poised to plunge. But instead of meeting a kindly rescuing angel, he attracts a carful of kids who urge him to jump, eager for a video that will go viral. To their razzing disappointment, he climbs back to safety, but he's not really safe. He's alienated from his teenage daughter and his carping ex-wife, stuck in a crummy apartment, and bored senseless by drilling teeth.
His woe deepens when he encounters a perky patient, Michael Fisk (Bradley Whitford, 59, the West Wing star). Michael seems to have the perfect life, including a dazzling career, ritzy home, kid at Princeton and devoted wife (Emily Mortimer, 47, Mary Poppins Returns). Michael discovers that Phil and he both spent their youth in Greece, and urges Phil to take his daughter there, to make the most of life. He quotes Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living."
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