The Middling, Melancholy Charm of <em>Like Father </em>
Netflix’s new feature comedy starring Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer is unremarkable in every way except one: It’s barely funny.
It feels strange to define as a comedy, since there’s only really one joke in the film, and that’s a winking allusion to Seth Rogen stoner movies. All the other structural elements of the genre are present: a madcap premise involving two people who get drunk and accidentally wake up on a cruise, a wedding flameout, an extravagant set piece involving karaoke, sequins, and Styx. But is steeped in a kind of melancholy that it can’t shake. Not even the reassuring presence of Kelsey Grammer,
