‘Ezra’ Review – Good Intentions, Bad Decisions

Max Bernal (Bobby Cannavale) is a stand-up comedian living with his father while struggling to co-parent his autistic son, Ezra (William A. Fitzgerald), with his ex-wife, Jenna (Rose Byrne). When difficult decisions come up about Ezra’s future that pushes Max out, he nabs Ezra in the middle of the night for a father-son road trip where they both discover more about each other than they ever had before. 

Ezra is a pretty happy child, although he can be a bit hyperactive. He speaks mostly in movie quotes, helps his dad with his jokes, and doesn’t like to be hugged. When Ezra gets in trouble at his school for endangering his classmates, Max and Jenna are confronted with the challenge of raising an autistic child and the different approaches each parent (and grandparent) has. Ezra is ultimately a film about parenting. How one does it, how some people do it differently, and everyone’s really charged and emotional responses to it. Parents never know which action could permanently damage a child’s psyche for the rest of their life, and that subject is even more sensitive when dealing with a neurodivergent child.

Jenna defers to the experts, Max challenges them at every turn. After a doctor suggests risperdal for Ezra’s mood swings, Max assaults him and ends up with a restraining order barring him from seeing Ezra. It’s here where we learn a lot about Max. He’s a struggling stand-up comic, mostly working the clubs and local spots. He has an agent looking out for him, played by Whoopi Goldberg, in an astonishingly underwritten role. He’s told by his fellow comics like Greer Barnes and Emma Willmann that he needs to switch up his style as it can lean into more of a depressing tone, particularly when he starts talking about his son and autism.

When his agent, Jayne (Goldberg) lands him a spot to perform on Jimmy Kimmel, Max, believing Ezra to be his muse, kidnaps his son to take him on a road trip. It is hard to know what the filmmakers’ intentions were, but if it were to tell a story about autism and how autistic people move throughout the world and in their lives, it falls a tad short. Instead, we are treated to a tale of how autistic people are used to the benefit or salvation of non-autistic people, in this case, a parent, which feels deliberately manipulative. 

Max isn’t concerned with Ezra’s agency, as much as he is with his own needs. He needs to control Ezra’s worldview and be the kind of parent he wants to be, even if he’s wrong. Pretty soon, it spirals out of control and the law gets involved, which increases the stakes but also wraps up a little too neatly at the end giving the film an unearned sense of over-saccharine sentimentality. There are little to no consequences for Max’s actions, and the only lesson he learns is that he doesn’t know what he’s doing or why he’s doing it.

There’s another story here between Max and his father, Stan, played by the always game, Robert De Niro. The two live together, but they struggle to talk to each other. Max’s mother left when he was a kid, and it’s a subject that is broached but isn’t fully explored. Even when the reasoning is revealed, it doesn’t land as well as it should, and there’s not enough time to delve deeper into it to where it might reveal more about either character. As it’s written, Ezra feels like the first few episodes in a limited series than it does a movie. As if the longer it kept going, the more we’d be able to get out of it. That would explain the limited engagement on so many topics and the all-star cast it boasts. You keep expecting that there will be more to come in the future.

There’s a greater, more fulfilling story here and it’s one that should be given the time and space to be explored, but here it can’t help but feel condensed and lack commitment. The cast does an exceptional job with what they’re given especially Fitzgerald, who actually is autistic and delivers a splendid, well-balanced performance. Still, it’s the kind of film that only barely grazes the surface of what it means to be on the spectrum, and it needed more depth to get where it hopefully, intended to go. 

Ezra is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of Bleecker Street.