Everything’s Going to Be Great Parents Guide 2025

Everything’s Going to Be Great is Rated R by Motion Picture Rating (MPA)for language, some sexual content/partial nudity, and brief teen alcohol use.

Introduction

Some movies shout for your attention; Everything’s Going to Be Great quietly takes your hand, spins you around, and gently breaks your heart — all while humming a show tune.

Directed with a soft touch by Jon S. Baird (Stan & Ollie), this bittersweet dramedy sneaks up on you. It starts like a quirky regional theater comedy, anchored by the reliably magnetic Bryan Cranston and Allison Janney, but quickly deepens into something more poignant — a reflection on family, compromise, and the awkward messiness of holding on to big dreams when the world keeps nudging you to let go.

Yes, it’s about theater. Yes, there’s flair and performance. But this isn’t a story about making it to Broadway. It’s about staying on your feet when the curtain doesn’t rise — and about what it means to keep performing when no one’s really watching anymore.

It’s funny, then devastating. Light, then bruisingly honest. And in the end, it leaves you with that rare feeling: the ache of something real.

Everything’s Going to Be Great Review

Buddy and Macy Smart (played with beautiful complexity by Cranston and Janney) have built their lives around regional theater — the scrappy kind that sets up folding chairs in middle school gyms and runs musicals about civic pride. They’re a couple married not just to each other, but to The Stage — that intoxicating dream of the spotlight, no matter how small.

But real life — the kind that doesn’t come with applause — has a way of intruding.

After a career setback leaves the Smarts without a home base, they move in with Macy’s estranged brother, Walter (Chris Cooper, in a quietly powerful role), in a sleepy New England town. That house becomes the stage now — not for musicals, but for deep family wounds, long-suppressed truths, and the painful work of raising two wildly different sons.

Lester, the younger, is Buddy’s spiritual heir — flamboyant, passionate, and already breaking out into song in the cereal aisle. Derrick, the older, is everything Buddy isn’t — sports-focused, guarded, skeptical of the artistic chaos around him. The film uses their dynamic not just as comic relief but as a mirror: how do parents shape — and sometimes break — their children with the weight of their own unfulfilled dreams?

The film isn’t interested in tidy arcs or Hollywood-style family reunions. It’s more honest than that. It’s about emotional survival. About how people who love each other deeply still find ways to wound each other. About the fine line between being a dreamer and being selfish. And, ultimately, about what’s left when the dream doesn’t quite pan out.

Does it succeed in saying all this? Not every beat lands cleanly. But the messiness is the message. Life, like regional theater, isn’t always polished — but when it works, it can be unexpectedly beautiful.

Performances & Characters

Let’s start with the obvious: Bryan Cranston and Allison Janney are national treasures, and this film reminds you why. Cranston’s Buddy is a walking contradiction — charming and exhausting, driven and delusional. There’s a particularly heartbreaking monologue where Buddy tries to convince his sons (and maybe himself) that theater still matters, even when no one is paying to see it. You see the flicker of doubt behind his eyes. It’s masterful.

Janney, meanwhile, delivers perhaps the most grounded performance of the film. Macy could have been the nagging wife archetype — but Janney infuses her with intelligence, fatigue, and a quiet fury that’s almost more powerful than any of Buddy’s outbursts. She holds the family together even as it pulls her apart. Her silences, more than her speeches, carry the film’s emotional weight.

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The younger cast is just as compelling. Jack Champion (from Avatar: The Way of Water) plays Derrick with a restrained vulnerability that’s all the more impressive because he doesn’t get the “fun” scenes. He’s a kid stuck between wanting to break away from his family’s chaos and not knowing who he’d be without it. Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Lester is the spark of joy in the film — loud, expressive, and endlessly sincere. He wears glitter eyeliner to dinner and sings Sondheim at full volume in the car. And somehow, none of it feels forced.

Chris Cooper’s Walter is the film’s emotional spine. Gruff, wounded, and quietly generous, he brings a kind of moral gravity that anchors the more performative chaos around him. A lesser film would use him as a caricature of the “disapproving relative.” Here, he’s a man nursing his own regrets — a mirror to Macy’s sacrifices and Buddy’s denial.

Direction, Visuals & Pacing

Jon S. Baird never lets the story drown in sentimentality. His direction is intimate, observant, and full of quiet visual choices that say more than any dialogue could. When Buddy sits alone on a theater stage late at night, lights off, humming to himself — that shot lasts just a few seconds, but it says everything about his isolation and determination.

The cinematography by Mark Wolf is warm but never saccharine. Sunlight through dusty windows, snow falling outside during rehearsals — it feels lived-in, tactile. You can almost smell the theater makeup and coffee.

Pacing-wise, the film wisely avoids the manic energy some indie dramedies chase. It breathes. It lets scenes sit. That might lose some impatient viewers, but for anyone willing to settle into its rhythm, it’s deeply rewarding. The editing doesn’t jump around needlessly — scenes unfold with a stage-like sense of space and timing.

And musically? The score knows when to swell and when to vanish entirely. There are musical numbers, yes, but they’re always grounded in the story — more expressive outbursts than polished performances. Think Little Miss Sunshine with a piano and a deeper ache.

As a dramedy, Everything’s Going to Be Great walks a delicate tightrope — and doesn’t fall off.

The comedy works because it’s rooted in character, not gags. Macy’s dry wit, Buddy’s over-the-top optimism, Derrick’s sarcastic disbelief — they bounce off each other with the kind of weary affection you only get in families who’ve spent too much time in cars together.

But when the drama hits, it hits hard. A late scene involving a quiet confrontation between Macy and Buddy — no yelling, no storming out — cuts deep. It’s about the promises we make in love, and the way time quietly erodes them.

There are no villains here, no easy heroes. Just flawed people trying their best. Which makes it all the more affecting.

Everything’s Going to Be Great Parents Guide 2025

Language: Yes, there’s strong language — mostly in moments of frustration or emotional rawness. Think real family arguments, not Tarantino. Expect f-bombs and the occasional biting insult, but it’s not nonstop profanity. It’s sparing, situational, and honestly — kind of earned.

Nothing feels thrown in for shock value, but when characters are hurting or trying to connect and failing, their words get sharp. As they do in real life.

Substance Use: There’s some drinking — wine with dinner, the occasional emotional nightcap  but no drug use or glamorization of alcohol. It’s there, but it’s not a party film. More like “Mom’s quietly sipping a red while contemplating divorce” kind of energy.

No one’s stumbling drunk, but alcohol is part of the background in a few scenes where emotions run high.

Sexual Content & Nudity: None, really. No sex scenes, no nudity, no innuendo-heavy comedy. This isn’t that kind of R-rated movie. Intimacy here is emotional, not physical — though one scene between the parents hints at past closeness and current distance.

Scary or Intense Scenes: No horror, no violence, no jump scares — unless you count the terrifying realization that your dreams might be slipping away. This is a slow burn of emotional intensity, not physical danger.

Should You Watch It With Your Teen?

That depends.

If your teen is 16+ and emotionally mature — meaning they can handle flawed characters, moral ambiguity, and stories that don’t tie everything up in a happy bow — then yes. Watch it together. And talk after.

But if your teen’s still looking for big laughs, clear good guys and bad guys, or fast pacing, this might feel like a slog. It’s more The Farewell than Ferris Bueller.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation

This is not a blockbuster. It doesn’t scream for your attention, and it’s not trying to go viral. It’s a small, soulful film about love, disappointment, and the strange beauty of carrying on.

If you’ve ever chased a dream and fallen short, if you’ve ever loved someone who couldn’t quite meet you halfway, or if you’ve ever sat in the audience of a local play and been surprised by how much it moved you — Everything’s Going to Be Great is for you.

It’s not perfect. But it doesn’t need to be. Like life — and theater — its imperfections are the point.