Suffering from obesity and still recovering from a major loss, English teacher Charlie seeks to reconnect with his estranged daughter. Doesn’t sound like a lot, does it? It’s really not very complex, from an objective standpoint. There’s only a handful of characters, one setting, and all focused around, for the most part, the same conflict. But there lies the film’s strength; it keeps things simple and straight forward. No pun intended, but there’s really no fat to the story. There’s no sense of filler. From the first scene we see the struggles that plague our main character, and from then on the rest of the story takes it’s time to methodically flesh out everything that’s been set up. And, I might as well address the most obvious thing right now, that being Brendan Fraser’s performance. Did he deserve the Oscar win? Well judging by the power of his performance and how it moved not only myself, but the rest of the theater to tears and audible sniffles, yes. He did deserve that win. He really did put everything he could into the role, even going through some extreme makeup transformations. You can tell he did his homework, studied the script, and gave it everything he had. As I mentioned, the story doesn’t have a lot to juggle, choosing to spend it’s time instead with what little it presents, but it also draws your attention so much that you don’t think about the flaws. After the film, there was one thing I felt didn’t work, boiling down to a fine payoff that made sense, but the walk there was a little choppy. But that wasn’t obvious to me as I watched the movie. There’s just that feeling that won’t go away, like you get when reading a book, that you just need to see what happens next. It’s like you can’t do anything else until you know. The ending doesn’t have quite the same impact upon rewatch, but the merit it carries doesn’t even come close to diminishing, and it’s an easy recommend. Although, do keep a box of tissues within arms reach before you start.