So is this a Hollywood take on the French film 5-7? The two films are quite similar so when watching the preview it was unclear from a vague memory if the film had actually been seen already. The film has some appealing aspects. PB is strong as the father. It does feel a good deal like a Woody Allen drama at times. It does take itself way too seriously. There is a line early in the film when the narrator says something like "the character of the young man symbolizes the new New York". That is a Brooklyn bridge too far! There has to be a rule in Hollywood not to compare any one person to the city of New York. Especially a rich young bratty white guy. That might work a little for Boulder, CO but not NYC. Decent film with a title song that is simply much better than the film.

If Amazon's picture selectors picked this they need to go back to film school 101 and learn what makes a good picture. The only saving grace was that the actors gave strong performances even though the story was totally unbelievable. I think I felt their shame more than once when they delivered every know cliche' known to movie going audiences. I'll bet Jeff Bridges was red all the way through the bar scene. Jeff Bezos may be the richest man in the world but he better get some people in his film group with a more discerning eye, or his competitors will force its closing pretty soon. Maybe this one is why he recently fired one of the top guys in the division.

The Only Living Boy in New York (2017)A surprise, from a film I hadn't heard about. It's flawed, it has some gaffes in the writing, and it uses some overused ideas (including the whole world of writers writing about being writers). But the acting is good, and the sentiment is kept in check (most of the time) so that it works overall. Enjoyable if nothing remarkable.There is a surprising number of known actors here, from Pierce Brosnan to Wallace Shawn (briefly). Callum Turner, the leading man (the only living boy), is likable but a weak link overall. He is meant to be in a crisis on every level, and he kind of shows it but you feel something missing in the performance. And maybe the writing.Ah, the writing. This is a movie about writers. And there are so many clichés here you can fill a salt shaker with them. Yeah, we love interpersonal drama, and the troubled mom and the troubled dad and the unlikely wise old man next door not to mention the utterly improbably girlfriend who isn't a girlfriend but who hangs on steadily anyway. It's a mashup of heart tugging types, and our star is in the middle navigating it all with really no rudderOr you might say that Jeff Bridges is his rudder. He's a cliché, too, of course, but his wisdom is good enough to give the movie some depth. I'd say the smarts of Kate Beckinsale's character, the mistress/lover with a troubled past and a surprisingly steady head on her shoulders, rises above the rest. Her performance is spot on, too.The upshot here is that the movie has a lot of little things to like, and the plot, which is riddled with little annoying emotional tricks, still has some honesty to it and you'll likely enjoy it all for what it is.

I didn't get this movie. At first I thought the director was trying to imitate a Woody Allen movie. This didn't work. Then I thought I'd gone to some romcom by accident, but no one was laughing. The script is bad, the 'deep psychological' plot turns just don't work, the casting is terrible, there's definitely no magic going on between the actors. I sat through 1 1/2 hours, but I advice you to save your bucks and just don't go see this movie. You'll probably be able to see in on Netflix in a few months in the "Arthouse" section.