I’m all about films that posit adults so envious of a child’s youth, beauty, and perspicacity that their blistering jealousy turns to seething hate. (See: Children of the Damned, The Brood, Princess Aurora’s folks in Sleeping Beauty, etc.) Diane Sherman (Sarah Paulson) is wheeled to the neonatal intensive care unit, where she will meet Chloe (disabled actress, Kiera Allen), the daughter who will spend her life in a wheelchair. Irony, anyone? How about Diane’s comment at a support group meeting, the one about a mother sacrificing everything for a child only to have them grow up and do everything she sacrificed. Teenage and home-schooled, Chloe soon discovers that mom is swapping out her medication with dog tranquilizers to further immobilize her legs. It’s up to director Aneesh Chaganty to make the impossible believable, something he did without breaking a sweat in Searching. But in trying to incorporate black comedy, mystery, suspense, and mystery, Chaganty finds he can’t keep the balls in the air, and his story slowly submerges in a quagmire of convention. If you’re a Hulu subscriber and this pops up, I suggest you point yourself in the opposite direction and do as the title says. (2020) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.