Every Day Review: Mediocrity at it’s Best

There is nothing more frustrating then viewing a piece of art and feeling absolutely nothing. Did the creator think they were going to win an award for the most average piece ever? What do you even say about something so bland? That’s how I felt after I saw Every Day, because from the title to the end credits, mediocrity oozes from every pixel on screen. Clearly writer and director Richard Levine had to have nothing but mediocrity on the brain while working on this.

Every Day is a story about a family dealing with day-to-day life. The main character Ned (Liev Schreiber) struggles with his job as a screenplay writer, while coming home to his wife distressed Jeannie (Helen Hunt), who spends her entire day taking care of her depressed, bed-ridden father. Ned is also unnecessarily worried about his openly gay son, Jonah (Ezra Miller), being taken advantage of. All these stresses seem to be pushing Ned right in-between the legs of his coworker, Robin (Carla Gugino).

Infidelity, homosexuality, and depression are all beautiful tension-building elements of a great dramatic movie, when they are used the right way. It’s just too bad Every Day failed to manipulate them properly in the story line. The biggest flaw with the film was how the story was being told, not the actual story. Part of the reason is the comparison between things pertaining to Ned’s career and his family life. Work and home are two completely different environments, which makes the storyline feel more awkward than the harmonized effect Levine was probably going for. There was a crazy bit of irony with Ned’s boss demanding over-the-top story ideas, calling Ned boring for wanting to tone down the drama, while Levine is presenting us a very boring yet over the top with drama movie.

At home, Ned is actually blowing his own problems out of proportion. He constantly worries about a pedophile kidnapping his son and comparing the kid to a daughter. Ned is also frustrated with how unhappy his wife is, which is weird because she’s actually trying to deal with stress at home. So he engages in an affair. But wait, before having sex in the pool, Ned and Robin snorted cocaine, smoked weed, and drank alcohol. You’d think all this would cause some serious drama. It didn’t.

This makes absolutely no sense. This guy is getting pissed off at work because he has to write super dramatic scripts, but comes home and creates even more problems by treating his son like a daughter and criticizing his wife for being frustrated. In the end, his boss claims that he wasn’t so boring after all, so this comparison was implied.

The other issue is that Jeannie and her father have an interesting relationship, but the audience only learns a handful about it. What might have been way more interesting is Jonah’s rebellious side, which has it’s own blog.

Maybe part of the problem is that we never get to see the full consequences or stories behind this glimpse of a family. To be honest, I don’t care what has happened or will happen to them. It is what it is, a glimpse of a family dealing with their own issues and how it changes everyday.

What’s interesting is that the attention to detail was amazing. The scene where Ned and Jeannie finally have sex was very well done, but not because it was a hot scene, far from it actually. While things are getting intimate in the bedroom, the scene cuts to their youngest son walking into his grandfather’s room. That scene and the sex scene goes back and forth until the son calls out to his mother, basically ruining their time together. Frustrating? Very. Accurate? Totally. That was a great way to wrap up the movie, because it depicts how hard it is for parents to have intimate time together when they have to take of their elderly parents or young children. The awkwardness radiates to the audience before Ned and Jeannie bolt up to see what’s wrong.

The acting, on the other hand, was amazing. The actors embodied the characters they were playing perfectly. I’m gushing over how adorable Ezra Miller is. Besides how the story was told, there wasn’t much a problem with anything else.

It was an average movie overall, even kind of boring. Want a break from overdone action-packed thrillers, melodramas, or corny chicks flicks? Then this is the perfect movie. Otherwise, save your money. You’re not missing much.