Wolf might have done better to expand upon some potentially interesting plot elements - such as the response of the other townspeople to Liam’s years-ago departure, and the musical career of Liam’s late mom - that are fleetingly referenced, then immediately forgotten. Worse, when that impediment finally does arrive, in the form of a childhood trauma revealed with almost comical abruptness, the plot twist feels exactly like what is, an arbitrary contrivance introduced only to briefly delay happily-ever-aftering.
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Writer-director Wolf takes far too long to introduce any sort of impediment to the forging of a father-daughter connection and, inevitably, the formation of a nuclear family.
#For ever my girl movie
(“I said I wanted to meet him,” Billy tells her disapproving mom, “but I never said I’d go easy on him.”) This budding relationship probably would be more engaging if Fortson weren’t encouraged so often to come across as a mouthy brat, and if the movie as a whole didn’t proceed at such a glacial pace. Much to his delight, and Josie’s discomfort, she readily accepts him as her dad - but not before busting his chops. Much of “Forever My Girl” is devoted to Liam’s eager if not desperate attempts to bond with Billy. (Specifically, she punches him in the gut after she spots him at the friend’s graveside service.) It takes only a bit longer for him to realize that Billy (Abby Ryder Fortson), Josie’s precocious daughter, is the child he never knew he fathered. Once he’s there, it doesn’t take long for him to have an awkward encounter with Josie. When he receives word of a childhood friend’s death in an auto mishap, however, Liam impulsively takes a return trip to St. In fact, he’s refrained from contacting any of the folks back home - including his estranged father, Brian (John Benjamin Hickey), the local pastor - while single-mindedly stoking his stardom, entertaining millions, and partying hearty. Of course, he never has answered that message. And, yes, he has become every bit the spoiled and self-indulgent sybarite you might expect.Īh, but appearances can be deceiving: He still treasures the antiquated flip-top cellphone that contains a forlorn message left years earlier by Josie (Jessica Rothe of “Happy Death Day”), the woman he left behind.
![for ever my girl for ever my girl](https://uptv.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/forever-my-girl-movie-3-jw.jpg)
Flash forward eight years, and Liam Page ( Alex Roe) has indeed achieved fame and fortune as a superstar country music singer-songwriter. Augustine, La., to pursue his musical career. The prologue primes us to expect the worst of the protagonist, even before we actually meet him, by depicting what happened when he left his fiancée at the altar back in St.
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It resembles nothing so much as a prosaic adaptation of a second-tier Nicholas Sparks novel, and doubtless will play best with audiences who think critics are much too harsh on movies that really are spawned by Sparks’ literary output.Īs it turns out, writer-director Bethany Ashton Wolf based her script on a work by another novelist, Heidi McLaughlin, which may explain the lack of a third-act intrusion by the grim reaper. “ Forever My Girl” is a sweet but slight romantic drama that got lost on its way to the Hallmark Channel - or, more likely, was rebuffed by that channel’s gatekeepers for being, even by their standards, entirely too predictable - and wound up in theaters instead.