Isabel (Michelle Williams), the manager of an Indian orphanage, travels to New York to pick up a generous endowment check. She soon learns that the daughter she thought was put up for adoption at birth by her ex Oscar (Billy Crudup) is alive and well and living with her father and his new wife (and Williams’ million-dollar benefactor), Theresa (Julianne Moore). Per usual, Moore pads her resume with another dying diva, this one looking to find Oscar a suitable replacement (and another Oscar® for the actress). Having not seen the 2006 Susanne Bier original from which this was grafted, it’s impossible for me to determine who to blame for the film’s overall air of blandness and predictability. A little dab of hysteria, some form of exaggerated emotion (other than Isabel’s unconvincingly profane mini-meltdown) would have added the melodramatic traction needed to make things interesting. But as mounted by Moore’s husband, writer-director Bart Freundlich (The Myth of Fingerprints), the film is just too damn polite for its own good. (2019) — Scott Marks
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