Better Things
2016
Original language: English
- comedy
- drama
The story
Sam Fox is a single, working actor with no filter trying to raise her three daughters – Max, Frankie and Duke – in Los Angeles. She is mom, dad, referee and the cops.
What it’s like
Warm, unvarnished natural light pours through kitchen windows and across cluttered Los Angeles living rooms, and the camera settles into long, patient takes that let awkward family moments breathe. The palette leans on sun-faded beiges, dusty greens and the soft amber of late afternoon, with little polish and no glossy gloss. Dialogue arrives in crisp, overlapping bursts, and the rare voiceover lands like a wry aside murmured straight to the viewer. Its vibe is candid, scrappy and tender underneath the bite: a comfortable Sunday-afternoon watch, or something to keep company while folding laundry. Pacing is loose and episodic, rambling through ordinary errands, auditions, school pickups and bickering over dinner, with scenes that linger past their punchline. Its emotional register swings between sharp humour and quiet ache as a single mother juggles three daughters, each growing into her own person while she fumbles to keep everyone afloat. Intensity is low to moderate: frank adult talk, profanity, sexual humour and awkward nudity, but no real violence and little peril. It suits viewers who want a funny, unsentimental portrait of parenthood, comfortable with a blunt, irreverent sense of humour.
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