Don’t Make Me Go movie review

MOVIE TITLE: Don’t Make Me Go

This relationship movie between father and daughter is available on streaming on Amazon Prime on July 15, 2022.

RATING: R

LENGTH: 1 hour 49 minutes

MOVIE REVIEW MOM GRADE: C+

IN A NUTSHELL:

Mia Isaac plays a teenager who narrates the movie. She states at the very beginning, “You’re not going to like the way this story ends, but I think you’re going to like this story.” It’s about a single father who learns that he has a fatal brain tumor. He takes his teenage daughter on a road trip to find the mother who abandoned her years before and to try to teach her everything she might need over the rest of her life.

The coming-of-age film was directed by actress Hannah Marks and written by Vera Herbert. Vera was a writer for NBC’s popular TV show “This Is Us” in 2016. The script for this movie was on the 2012 Black List of the best-unproduced screenplays in Hollywood.

THINGS I LIKED:

I really enjoyed John Cho’s outstanding, believable performance. He also sings in the movie during a cute Karaoke scene. Do you think it was his real voice? It was! He sings “The Passenger” by Iggy Pop. Nice job!
Fun fact: The movie was actually filmed in New Zealand during the pandemic, so the road trip through several states in the USA doesn’t show the typical landmarks you’d expect. The film was edited via Zoom!
Newcomer Mia Isaac does a great job playing a bratty, unappreciative, self-centered teenager. I thought the character she played was super annoying and that she was super disrespectful to her father. In real life, she is sweet to her father who really did teach her how to drive her first car. Footage from her actual childhood is used in the movie with John Cho’s voice dubbed into various sections.
I can’t believe Kaya Scodelario is old enough to be the love interest of a father of a teenager in this movie. It seems like yesterday that she was a teenager in Maze Runner.
Nice soundtrack.
On a personal note, when my parents divorced, I moved in with my dad. He was an incredibly sensitive father as he raised his 3 daughters. Being a single parent has to be one of the hardest jobs out there. I salute all of you who are out there doing the best you can.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

Predictable twist.
Cliched and formulaic journey
It’s super frustrating watching Wally make terrible decisions.
Who names their daughter “Wallace”?
There was absolutely no reason for us to have to see the nude people on the beach. This could have easily been a PG-13 movie that teens could watch. The screenwriter, Vera Herbert, wrote this scene because she and her father had the same experience of accidentally ending up on a nude beach.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

Profanity
You have to read a lot of text messages
Lots of teenage kissing
We see an unmarried dad in bed with his girlfriend making noises
Talk of booty calls
Teenagers and adults drink alcohol and get drunk
A teen girl takes a Selfie of her chest and explains that she’s “being a good girlfriend.”
Full frontal nudity of men and women at a nudist beach walking their dog, playing volleyball, sunbathing, etc. We did NOT have to see the naked bodies to understand the awkward moment between father and daughter.