In Fatherhood, Kevin Hart’s out-of-his-depth widower joins cinema’s pantheon of burdened lone fathers, from Chaplin to brooding Laurence Fishburne
It’s Father’s Day, and if you’re looking for a suitable new film to mark the occasion,
Netflix has cannily released Paul Weitz’s Fatherhood just in time – ending a long period of pandemic limbo for a film that was supposed to be out in April 2020. One way or another, it has found its moment: sweetly agreeable if no classic, you’d never guess it wasn’t entirely custom-made for this one day of the year.
It’s a showcase for the softer side of Kevin Hart, the brash, unfiltered comedian who got into hot water some years ago over homophobic tweets and
comedy routines detailing his fear of his son growing up to be gay. Perhaps Fatherhood is to some extent an image reform exercise. He’s certainly quite disarming in it, as an overwhelmed widower left holding his infant daughter without a clue about how to raise her. As you can probably predict, what ensues is a dual coming-of-age story, as the manchild matures in tandem with his kid. Weitz, who has experience in crude comedy (American Pie) and mellower male crisis (About a Boy), unsurprisingly pitches Fatherhood halfway between those two modes, allowing some room for Hart’s trademark shtick between sentimental life lessons.