Christopher Plummer lights up “Boundaries” as Jack, an oldster kicked out of a retirement home for his practice of selling marijuana. The film has been written and spiritedly directed vby Shana Feste.
What do to with Jack? His daughter, Laura, amusingly played by Vera Farmiga, already has enough problems. She is a divorced mom raising Henry, an oddball of a son, played accordingly by Lewis MacDougall. He loves to draw naked pictures, for which he has been kicked out of school. The examples that we see of his drawings are amusing. Laura has her own weakness for rescuing and collecting pets that overrun her home in Seattle.
Jack and Henry bond, and that provides the film with its warmth and thrust toward adventure. Laura, Jack and Henry set off on a road trip with Laura intending to park her father with her reluctant sister, played by Kristen Schaal. What Laura doesn’t realize is that Jack has enlisted Henry into aiding him in completing pot deals along the way with old friends. There is a big stash in the trunk of the old Rolls.
This gives Christopher Lloyd and Peter Fonda a chance to turn up amusingly as the acquaintances. Laura also makes contact with her ex, Leonard, played by the excellent Bobby Cannavale, and has a roll in bed that only ends up in an argument.
Plummer is a reliable hand at delineating characters, and he steals this film, although the other cast members are entertaining in their respective ways. “Boundaries” has a light touch throughout and comes across as generally amusing if not earthshaking. A Sony Pictures Classics release. Reviewed June 22, 2018.