It reminded me a bit of my father and felt nostalgic and adventurous. It was my kind of quirky with a touch of reality. It brought out the child in me and reminded me why we believe in anything and the magic of it. An exploration into the complicated relationships with family while freshly building promise that a single goal, no matter how awkward, can be the binding piece of the puzzle in a fragmented father and daughter bond. Displays how judgment of those we do not understand is sometimes unwarranted and without any imagination, while the imagination of those we judge roams freely without lack of faith. Humbling, funny, and happy go lucky.

A comedy that doesn't have its first laugh out loud moment until it's more than halfway over and then takes an oddly unjustified turn into the maudlin at the end isn't usually going to be that good. Add in a gratingly whimsical soundtrack that makes you feel like someone is constantly tapping you on the forehead with a spatula and you've got something that should suck. Fortunately for King Of California, Michael Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood paddle fast enough as actors to keep the whole movie from going over the edge and down the Niagara Falls of crappy cinema.Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood) is a 16 year old girl who lives alone in a big old house, drives a ramshackle station wagon and works at McDonald's. She's all alone because her mother ran off when she was nine and her father Charlie (Michael Douglas) has been in a state mental institution for the last 2 years. Charlie gets out and moves back in with Miranda, his bipolar looniness largely intact, and drags his daughter in a treasure hunt for lost Spanish gold from 1624. They wander the countryside, following decoded instructions from an old missionary's journal, eventually winding up breaking into a Costco and digging through the floor. That's where King of California takes a severe right turn out of indulgently amusing and into arbitrary drama with an ending that can be understood in two different ways, though I'm not sure these filmmakers could tell you which was the right way.Everything that's right about this movie flows out of the performances of Douglas and Wood. Charlie is a wonderful character who stumbles along the edge of mental health, never wanting to go over but never wanting to move back to where it's completely safe. Miranda is adorable as a young woman who can't deny her love for her father, no matter how much she might want to. Douglas and Wood are marvelous in crafting a relationship where it's never clear how much Charlie is pulling Miranda after him and how much she's walking arm in arm with him just so she can be close to her spacey dad. With the two of them almost constantly on screen together, King Of California is almost constantly enjoyable.Put two lesser actors in those roles and this film would have crashed hard and burned harder because there's so many things wrong with it. As previously mentioned, there are hardly any jokes for the first 50 minutes of this supposed comedy and not many more attempts at feeble situational humor. And outside of a few short flashbacks, there's also no actual drama in the movie until the very end. The viewer's interest has to entirely float along on the good feelings engendered by Douglas and Wood. And when the script does plunge into dramatics, it's so out of place and awkward it feels like the whole movie swallowed some mood-altering pharmaceutical. Drama needs conflict to survive and there just isn't any here. Charlie is portrayed as kooky but otherwise completely functional. Flashbacks show 9 year old Miranda suffering through a childhood of her mother's abandonment and her father's depression, but grown up Miranda doesn't show a single emotional or psychological scar from the experience. These are fundamentally happy people living fundamentally happy lives, despite all challenges, which is okay but not the stuff of wrenching emotional climaxes.King of California is an almost disaster that is salvaged into watchability by its male and female leads, proving that a movie doesn't have to be good at everything as long as it's great at one thing.

It's the Sideways vibe and feeling again. Watching generates that 'sweet feeling'. Music is well planted to some scenes of the movie giving it 'sweet flow'. Ending is a bit complicated initially. Had to watch it again to pickup on details. 1st Charlie preparing dishwasher gift. He gave her credit card that she could use. Then he uses plastic container to make extra trip to the 'hole' just before they turn on the lights in Costco. What do you think is he doing? 2nd he looses scuba diving gear to get through the narrow passage. I thought director left it to the viewer to create own ending and decide if Charlie lives or not. It's not so. The final scene- had to play that scene twice to confirm: Chinese swimmers. There are 7 men coming out of the ocean but only 6 continue walking together. Who is the 7th man? :-)

This is a great movie, I would recommend it to anyone. The writing is excellent, steering you through a crazy idea, and throughout the entire movie you're left wondering... is it real, or is he crazy? You get many hints both ways during the ride. The movie explores the strained relationship between father and daughter, and theirs is an especially broken one. Evan Rachel Wood and Micheal Douglas both do an outstanding job with their characters, and are thoroughly convincing.If you like low key Sundance-friendly movies that make you think, pick this one up.