There’s no denying that Schroeder’s gutsily nostalgic comedy has
its heart in the right place. But an air of calculation pervades every scene, as teenage misfit Michael Angarano rescues Citizen Kane gaffer Christopher Plummer from the Motion Picture Retirement Home to work on his film-school audition piece.
As in Cocoon* *(1985), the emphasis is on sentiment, feel-good and reclaiming the elderly from the scrapheap. But the performances are nowhere near as subtle, with Plummer particularly seizing every opportunity to showboat, whether heckling Charlton Heston or embarking on another of his periodic benders.