R | 1h 35m | Dramedy | 2025
“Everything’s Going to Be Great” is a family dramedy set in the late 1980s, but the Smarts aren’t your typical family.
Dad Buddy Smart (Bryan Cranston) is the artistic director of a regional theater in Akron, Ohio—he’s got a theatrical, twirl-able, curled-at-the-edges mustache. Mom Macy Smart (Allison Janney) is his girl Friday.
Younger son Lester (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) and his elder brother Derrick (Jack Champion) work at the repertory theater after school, to Lester’s great joy, and Derrick’s everlasting cringe.
The Smarts all want different things out of life. Buddy wants to work in a more prestigious theater, Macy would like to finally be able to stop penny-pinching, and Lester (who communicates regularly with the ghosts of Noël Coward (Mark Caven), Tallulah Bankhead (Laura Benanti), and Ruth Gordon (Chick Reid), wants to be a thespian of great renown. Black sheep of the family due to his regular dude-bro-ness, Derrick just wants to play football and chase chicks.
Having the jock son be the odd man out is amusing, with dad observing that his eldest’s football obsession is “merely a phase.” When the Smarts road-trip, they don’t sing “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” Oh no. They sing “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” from “The Pirates of Penzance”—and even Derrick knows all the words.
There Are No Families Like Showbusiness Families
Almost but not quite starving artists, stability and security exist for the Smarts only in Buddy’s unsinkable optimism, from whence the movie derives its title. Two back-to-back big moves leave them reeling and unclear on how to proceed. Will they continue to go all in and dream big, or will they get safe and settle for safety? One thing’s for certain: They’re not going to stay in Akron just because Derrick finally got himself a girlfriend plus a steady job at Foot Locker.They pack it up and risk it all on fame and fortune! In New Jersey. And maybe Milwaukee if they play their cards right. Buddy eternally observes that, despite having no money, they’re all “rich in so many ways.”
Performances
A quaint, little movie, both Cranston and Janney know they’re above this material, as does the audience. Since both are consummate showbiz pros, though, they admirably don’t phone in their performances.Their two sons obviously don’t have as much experience or craft, but child actors tend to spring full-blown onto the big screen like Pallas Athena from the forehead of Zeus. Child actors are like the music business joke: “How do musicians spend their time? 30-percent practicing, 40-percent thinking about practicing, and 30-percent worrying about child prodigies.” Both young actors acquit themselves well.
“Everything’s Going to Be Great” is basically a film about a family from Oz that’s forced to move to Kansas. Theirs is a life of effervescent fantasy; though harsh reality constantly pops their soap bubbles, they are buoyed by the motto of the pater familias. But is it really optimism? Or maybe just vehement denial?
In the end, the film has some of the makings of a cult classic—it’ll definitely resonate with, and become a must-see, for theater kids. The second half falters, but the film as a whole is carried by the spirit of Buddy’s proclamation, and that makes it easy to enjoy.
