I walked into this movie with nothing known or read beforehand. I go out of my way to do this when I can and my wife helps out by handling all things related to Netflix...so the first time I usually hear a title of a movie is when it comes across the screen.
This movie felt like a close extension of Hawke's film where he was an author living with his new gf/wife in Europe. Heavy in dialogue, with no tragedies or event-driven-drama to move the plot along; which is a nice feature generally.
I think the value in the picture is in its concept and how its executed; both of which were flawless in my view. Bravo. But the downsides seemed to stack up. Though the acting was fine (with great work from Arquette and Hawke), the main character a bit whiny & introspective for my taste, the writing/script generally weak and uninspired, and the length reached the point of intolerability for us around 2:15. The last 20-30 minutes we were found ourselves actively and loudly asking for it to wrap up. For example, why not cut the junior year trip to UT?
Other items that stuck out to us on the good-side was the fact that both of the abusive husbands created conflict in the audience because they often said precisely what the kids needed to hear, but we're obviously criminal in their approach. It made it so that it took some courage for one of us to speak up and say, "you know....the drunk abuser actually has a point". On the bad side was unnecessary political stereotyping (really? a confederate flag for an anti-Obama guy and the "nicest lady in the world" for the Obama lady next door? We're not Rs or Ds in our household and we still found it be gag-worthy).
3/5 for me, but it looks like Im in the minority.
