The Fundamentals of Caring
Director: Rob Burnett
Year Released: 2016
Rating: 0.5
Former writer-turned-caretaker Ben (Paul Rudd) accepts a job to look after bitter Trevor (Craig Roberts), who lives with his single mother Elsa (Jennifer Ehle) and has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which has him wheelchair-bound and afraid of the world. It plays on this cutesy and improbable idea that a road trip can 'transform' and 'redeem' people, culminating in a hackneyed scene where Rudd helps a pregnant woman deliver her child - thereby 'erasing'/'fixing' his own past (his son died in a car accident and his marriage dissolved) - while hitchhiker Dot (Selena Gomez) reconnects with her mess of a father (Bobby Cannavale) and Trevor pees standing up into a huge pit (this is actually his crowning achievement). The attempt to make a disabled person 'funny' and 'sarcastic' in order to defuse feelings of pity backfires - there's a fine line between being a jerk and being entertaining - though I will admit I laughed at the (presumably improvised) Slim Jim scene.
