Mark Ruffalo is so wonderful as a bipolar single dad who raises his two daughters in 1970s Boston that you can almost overlook that Maya Forbes’ quasi-autobiographical film is the latest in a long line of dramedies romanticizing mental illness.
Ruffalo’s Cam is an impoverished, garrulous Boston blue blood who has barely recovered from a serious breakdown when his estranged wife (Zoe Saldana, fine) turns over the custody of their two young daughters (charmingly played by Ashley Aufderheide and the director’s daughter Imogene Wolodarsky) while she studies for a law degree in New York.
Life with this father — who frequently goes off his meds and binges on booze — is a series of near-disasters and humiliations for the girls, but Cam (based on the director’s real-life father) is so charming and gifted in various ways that it’s easy to enjoy this fanciful look at a bohemian mixed-race family.