"Four Good Days" feels honest, not maudlin, with great performances by Close and Kunis

Four Good Days (2021)

“Four Good Days” could have gone so wrong. When a film dealing with drug addiction stars recognizable actors made up to look haggard and rough around the edges, it can come off phony or maudlin. That does not happen here, and it also should not be unfairly compared to “Hillbilly Elegy,” Ron Howard’s ridiculously over-crucified Oscar bait that co-starred Glenn Close going full Mamaw. Sometimes, similar projects just come an actor’s way, and Close does star as the mother recovering from giving up on and being repeatedly disappointed by her drug-addicted daughter, played by a risk-taking Mila Kunis. It’s a merry-go-round of an emotional journey that chooses the truth over sugar-coated preachiness. 

Kunis plays Molly Wheeler, a 31-year-old woman who has battled heroin and opioid addiction for ten years or more. After living on the streets, Molly arrives on the doorstep of mother Deb (Close), a Los Angeles masseuse. She’s desperate, pleading to come home, but looking strung-out on heroin and meth with her teeth rotting. Her home key won’t work because Mom had to change the locks when Molly and her boyfriend kept stealing from her to buy drugs. Deb puts her foot down by not letting Molly set foot inside her house, but she will take her daughter to detox at a rehabilitation facility. This will be the fifteenth time Molly has tried detoxing. But this time, a doctor offers a shot called an “opioid antagonist,” which will make her immune to getting high. The only catch is that Molly needs to stop using for the next four days without any drugs in her system. Or else, she could have a bad reaction.

Based on a 2016 Washington Post article about mother Libby Alexander and daughter Amanda Wendler by writer Eli Saslow, “Four Good Days” is sensitively directed by Rodrigo García (2015’s “Last Days in the Desert”) and perceptively written by García and Saslow. The film covers addiction from both sides and from those on the outside of Molly’s circle looking in. When Molly agrees to a former classmate (Rebecca Field) to speak in front of a high school class about her recovery and how her days were always spent getting high, an ignorant teenage girl shouts out, “Then just don’t?” Aside from that teen and many others, the script itself is a judgment-free zone. Even if it alludes to Deb’s absence in Molly’s life being one of the potential causes for her downfall, it neither criticizes these characters nor lets them fully off the hook. 

Mila Kunis is as achingly raw and emotionally honest as she’s ever been as Molly, who’s not a bad person but just someone who’s lost her way. Close is excellent, conveying the tough love that Deb has had to adopt for her ill daughter and the fear that she will stop loving her. Deb has heard it all before. She stays strong, doesn’t pity her, and takes all of the precautions, like putting her wallet and car keys under her pillow when Molly comes knocking. Deb knows what she has to do, even if it's to act heartless to not get dragged down, but she also doesn’t want to hear the rah-rah, stay-strong platitudes from her second husband, Chris (Stephen Root). Root doesn’t have a lot to work with, staying out of the way mostly, but he excels with what he does get when he’s done being nice and starts getting real. Carla Gallo makes an impression, as small as her role may be as Molly’s lawyer sister whom Deb always puts on the back burner, and Michael Hyatt has one poignant scene as a fellow mother in Deb’s group therapy.

“Four Good Days” rarely flinches away from the ugliness of addiction. It’s harrowing and affecting when it could have been pat or full of over-the-top histrionics. To drive the drama, there are just enough complications that Molly and Deb must contend with across four days. First off, there's Molly's withdrawal, as long as she doesn't lie about not using before receiving the shot. There’s Molly reuniting with her two kids, brought over by the ex-husband (Joshua Leonard), and the anxiety and emotions that come with that. There’s Deb trying to get in contact with Molly’s estranged father, who never answers his phone. There’s the constant worry Deb feels when leaving Molly at home for fear that she will fall back into her ways. Even in scenes where Molly is triggered, like her own son telling her she sucks at a video game but going on and on until it seems personal, one holds their breath, until there’s a release. Then, at one point when Deb tries trusting Molly to go check on a friend in a sketchy part of town, Deb ends up going in after her daughter in what turns out to be a trap house.

Things do ratchet up considerably, as they understandably would, in the climax where characters are no longer using their inside voices. It’s the cut to black that makes this transition to the actual ending feel a bit abrupt. Even then, Molly still smokes cigarettes even after she seems to be on her way to a better life, so we know this isn’t some rose-colored Lifetime melodrama. In the end, there’s a subtle counterpoint to what used to be: the beeping of Deb’s alarm system whenever the front door or garage door opens is now gone. Deb’s trust in her daughter has been renewed, but it hasn’t been easy. “Four Good Days” then concludes on a perfectly quiet moment in Deb’s garage, where mother and daughter finish a puzzle with only one piece missing and then crumble up the pieces. It could seem corny or heavy-handed, but it’s with those unspoken looks by these superb actors that make a difference.

Grade: B

Vertical is releasing “Four Good Days” (99 min.) in theaters on April 30, 2021.