Fathers And Daughters Review

Gabriele Muccino’s muddled, overwrought soapy drama works on two intermingling timelines. The first follows widowed author Jake (Russell Crowe) suffering a mental breakdown while wrestling over custody of his infant daughter, Katie. The second follows a grown-up Katie (Amanda Seyfried) sleeping around to mask her pain until she meets nice Cameron (Aaron Paul). It’s tastefully shot and Crowe commits to the horrors of Jake’s illness (his seizures are upsetting) but the writing lacks depth, the character psychology is dime-store Freud and the performances are variable: Diane Kruger, as Jake’s ‘evil’ sister-in-law, may give the pantomime performance of the year.