ERIC LARUE - Mark Reviews Movies

Eric LaRue, Magnolia Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 3, 2025

Brett Neveu's screenplay for Eric LaRue, based on his 2002 play, seems to know what it wants to do, especially since the final scene pretty much lays it out for us, but doesn't know how to get there. The story is difficult stuff, to be sure, dealing with the aftermath of a school shooting. It's a subject that would have been ambiguous and novel when Neveu's play was first staged. More than two decades and hundreds of acts of violence at schools later, that topic is depressingly common, and honestly, it doesn't seem as if the screenwriter has taken into account how much has changed in his adaptation.

As such, the story here feels very insulated, as it follows Janice (Judy Greer)—the mother of said murderer—in her vague efforts to understand how she's supposed to respond to her son's actions, and takes a broad approach to find fault or hypocrisy in everything surrounding the violent event. There are times when Neveu and Michael Shannon, making his directorial debut, go for humor in their efforts, especially when it comes to a pair of churches, pastors, and congregations basically dueling to be the source of healing for the community at a time when that seems impossible.

That specific idea is, perhaps, best suited to its own, isolated story. It definitely doesn't fit in this one, which is mostly grounded by Greer's performance, which conveys Janice's uncertainty with heartbreaking authenticity, and some notion of what must be a terrible reality—to be so intrinsically connected to an act of violence that people almost reflexively assume that some of the reason, part of the blame, and a degree of the responsibility falls upon that person. Janice had no clue that her son would or even could kill three of his classmates, but from the perspective of some, might that mean she has failed as a parent as much as if she did know?

Those seem like the more pertinent questions and ideas to explore in this story than, well, whatever it is Neveu's screenplay is actually doing here. Some of it comes through, of course, because Janice and her dilemma are the center of this tale, but the movie's bigger ambitions gradually overtake even the more down-the-earth and relevant elements of the story.

There's a sense of calculation on Neveu's part whenever it takes on the religion and hypocrisy angles. That feeling spreads to other scenes, too, especially a pair of guided "discussions" between Janice and the mothers of two of her son's victims, as well as the final scene, in which two characters talk around what's on their mind so much that it feels like a writing exercise for Neveu and not an actual conversation.

When it does simply focus on Janice and her attempts to get back to some sense of normalcy, the movie is effective. Janice and her husband Ron (Alexander Skarsgård), who's so detached and nonchalant about the crimes that he doesn't even seem connected to this story, have fallen into distinct routines.

Janice spends her days in the house, staring at the television but mostly trying to avoid looking at the door to her son's bedroom. She heads out to do grocery shopping, where she meets pastor Steve Calhan (Paul Sparks) and has to bluntly explain why she's avoiding church, and tries to go back to work, where a customer plays a nasty prank on her and management fears her presence makes people too uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, Ron has put everything into going back to normal and, with some pressured guidance from co-worker Lisa (Alison Pill), and attending a different church. The pastor (played by Tracy Letts) there wants Ron to convince—or coerce—Janice to partake in a meeting between herself and the mothers of three boys their son shot, but mostly, Ron finds comfort in giving his pain and grief over to a divine power. The character's denial is obviously his driving force, but Ron is so broadly depicted here that he basically becomes yet another piece in the screenplay's almost satirical takedown of the insincerity of these churches, the community at large, and even, it seems at times, those who have been directly affected by the son's murders.

That's because Steve also wants to organize a meeting between Janice and the other mothers. Those scenes are on-the-nose, with the pastor becoming distracted and taking sides and stopping the very conversation he wants to have, and one-sided, making the other mothers into oblivious or emotionally manipulative figures. As a result, any sense of grief, guilt, or any real human emotion is overwhelmed by Neveu wanting to make what is, at its core, a pretty cynical point about how people exploit tragedy to their own ends.

Sure, there is truth in that, but both the script and the filmmaking of Eric LaRue are at odds with themselves throughout this fundamentally confused story. Janice is undeniably a character worth examining. The study of her regret and resentment, though, comes at the cost of every other character in the story, while any effort to look at this scenario realistically is undermined by the movie's oddly sardonic perspective.

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