Dealing With Dad revolves around a dysfunctional family that most people can relate to. It’s funny and heartfelt.
It tackles depression head-on, breaking up the deep dive into dysfunction when it could be too much. Without dwelling on how badly he treated them before becoming depressed himself, we might not laugh at all — but they also think he’s a nicer person now than he ever was when they were kids. They want to know if helping their father means ignoring years of his being mean and never saying anything good about them or themselves having fun for once.
Margaret (Ally Maki), Roy (Peter S. Kim) and Larry (Hayden Szeto) must unite forces to pull their dad out of a deep depression after losing his job. However, they notice that he seems different now– niceness was never in his repertoire with them growing up. He’d always been strict while rarely praising; so should we fixate more on fixing him mentally or take advantage of this newfound appreciation?
Depending on your relationship with your father, this film may need a trigger warning; however, it is truly eye-opening and will give you a fresh perspective you did not know Dealing With Dad has.
It is a brilliant story. Very well written, making it relatable for many — who doesn’t have family drama? This movie stays grounded the whole time without reaching too high up or sinking too low down: everything works because of the cast mostly. All three kids feel like siblings you grew up with, would die beside but also love teasing each other mercilessly if given the chance.
Dealing With Dad takes its time to hit major plot points as it goes along. It feels like watching someone unpack all their past traumas and emotional abuse before suddenly realizing what they’ve achieved through self-reflection here today; every one of those siblings rocks at acting but Ally Maki just shines brighter than any other star in this film.
Like Roy said, Margaret has always been the one to take charge (we get a glimpse of that in the very first scene). It’s who she is. While we do understand what each of them is going through with their father, we follow Margaret around more than any other character.
Personally speaking, I found myself relating easily. So much so that just one look on her face during an argument later on made me start sobbing uncontrollably. Also, Maki has this super heavy monologue towards end about knowing someone battling depression and… yeah let’s move on.
As a comic book geek and collector myself, I heavily relate to Larry – being the youngest he’s treated as such throughout whole movie (obviously). However! There are some big things happen for him too; plus which lotsa laughs!
Dealing With Dad is running a little long, at an hour and forty-six minutes. This is perhaps the only real problem with it. I wouldn’t have any complaints at all if it could have managed a solid ninety. There are a couple of scenes that could be cut or shortened in order to tighten up the pace, but that’s really just me being picky.
General Thoughts
I think Dealing With Dad does a great job of portraying a dysfunctional family on screen. It deals with depression very honestly, and how it affects those around us. Additionally, the film touches on past trauma and abuse while offering another side to the story.
The thing is: we don’t know what our parents were like before we were born; especially if they refuse to talk about their pasts.
That’s what makes this movie different from others like it. You can easily get invested in this family and fall in love with them – they’re all going through something, on top of dealing with their dad’s health issues. Even Sophie, their mother, has some growing and learning to do.
Dealing With Dad will definitely make you want to call your loved ones – especially if you haven’t spoken in a while. All in all though, this movie has a lot of humor; but it’s the messages about understanding each other better & loving people while they’re still here (mixed with appreciating what we’ve got) which really shine through for me!
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