Whilst Everything’s Going to Be Great starts out a bit more eccentric and comedically minded than how it ends, the performances at the core of Jon S. Baird‘s dramedy, and the sense that it celebrates art and those that have always felt a little different in doing so, keeps it continually moving at an enjoyable pace.
Set in the late 80s, Everything’s Going to Be Great centres around the Smart family – optimistic patriarch Buddy (Bryan Cranston), his more realistically inclined wife, Macy (Allison Janney), and their two kids, 16-year-old jock son Derrick (Jack Champion) and 14-year-old theatre lover (and snob) Lester (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) – and their struggles in trying to survive off the back of their arts-based careers.
Well, to be more correct, it’s Macy that feels the struggle the most, as she eternally worries about the finances, whilst Buddy, always looking at life through rose coloured glasses, offers the type of hopeful suggestions that further lean into his sanguine temperament. The regional Ohio-based theatre they are currently running isn’t pulling in the crowds or funds that neither senior Smart would appreciate, and though it hasn’t done anything to deter the young Lester, it only further cements Derrick’s outlook that they should give up the theatre and submit to being more of a “normal” family; all he wants to do is play football and lose his virginity.
When Buddy learns of a prime opportunity in New Jersey where he can run a more popular venue, with the promise of being far more financially stable in the process, the Smarts up-and-leave, but when family tragedy strikes it puts far more of their navigation into disarray. Lester seems to take the shift in their dynamic the hardest, as he’s too impatient to wait for the success he expects, he develops a mistrust of his mother, and his brother practically ignores him at their new school. Thankfully, through hallucinations of popular arts figures (Ruth Gordon, Noel Coward and Tallulah Bankhead) who serve as somewhat of an inner voice, he finds the strength and grit to keep going against the adversities he’s facing in his own home.
The film operates mostly as a drama, but Steve Rogers‘s script peppers in enough levity to keep it from entirely succumbing to an overtly considerable temperament. Cranston brings a real joy to his character, resulting in Buddy proving one of his finest characters in years. Janney, one of the more morally questionable characters, laces Macy with a true sense of empathy, allowing us to go on the journey with her, as opposed to denying her own feelings. Champion, as the outcast of his family (humorously ironic), fits the handsome jock archetype with ease, but offsets a certain expectation by sporadically leaning into his own theatricality. And Ainsworth practically walks away with the whole thing, embodying Lester with a sense of honesty that cuts through the “theatre kid” build he so could have easily embraced with a certain camp that runs the risk of alienating viewers. He’s different and unique, but he’s truly relatable, and it’s his performance that helps Everything’s Going to Be Great stick its landing on celebrating individuality.
Regardless of what your interest is as a person, whatever it is that makes you feel solitary, Everything’s Going to Be Great helps celebrate such a mentality. It may not break the mold within its genre or characterization, but it maintains a confident shape in its congratulatory disposition.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Everything’s Going to Be Great is screening as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, running between June 4th and 15th, 2025. For more information, head to the official site here, before opening in the United States in select theatres on June 20th.
