Dan (Douglas Esper) and Julia (Allison Marie Rogers) struggle with their son, who deals with a strange affliction. This loving family has secrets, and their son, Christin (Jacob Rayl) is at the center of them. They keep telling one another that “It’ll Be Okay,” but will it?
It’ll Be Okay is plagued by rudimentary mistakes that seem so obvious–and I’m not entirely sure how Writer Rogers and Director Richard Russell believed that their script had enough umph to get them where they wanted to go. The intention is there for sure, and I found the narrative to be incredibly compelling–but the execution of just about everyone involved slowly ripped this film apart, ultimately delivering something far too simple and altogether underdeveloped.
It often feels as if the film falters as a result of the lack of resources available to the team. The camera is shaky, and while that may help to create an intimate tone in some situations, all it does here is frustrate. It’ll Be Okay needs to be about emotion, it needs to constantly remind viewers of the importance of this family dynamic–but with the cinematography always being so shaky, it makes it nearly impossible for viewers to hone in on these nuances and appreciate the family as a whole. Furthermore, not being able to properly see the actors or placing them in peculiar locations throughout the film often leads to a further disconnect. It’ll Be Okay never develops these characters, and ultimately presents the world with something dry and unappealing.
Quickly backtracking to the emotional aspect of the film: it’s not until the final ten seconds of It’ll Be Okay that emotion makes its way in. I can’t understand how, in a film that should be overflowing with emotion, this team can’t develop emotion in a way that viewers can feel, that they can understand. Why can’t I access the relationship between Dan, Julia, and Christian? Why can’t I feel an ounce of excitement or pain? In short: it’s the writing. The dialogue is so proper, so out of touch with reality that it becomes challenging to accept these characters as real. Sure, It’ll Be Okay is ultimately a science fiction film, and there should be some level of disconnect there, but emotion and dialogue should be the bridge that exists between the film and its viewers. I was never able to get a sense that these people are real, that the words that came out of their mouths were in any way honest–and the whole family aspect of the film ends up feeling like a facade, an act put on–one last grasp at an emotional connection to the audience.
There is a little bit of misdirection at the start of It’ll Be Okay–and this gave me some hope that maybe Russell and Rogers were going to eventually deliver something unexpected and interesting. While the film may dabble in horror, It’ll Be Okay is ultimately a drama–and the direction in which viewers felt that they were initially being led would have been much more appealing in this regard. This team makes it so obvious, between the writing, direction, and Esper’s acting at the start, that a sudden death in the family (specifically as a result of a heart attack) would be the emotional obstacle that these characters would be forced to navigate. Viewers are quickly yanked in a different direction, to something far less interesting, something that never effectively developed–leaving me puzzled and frustrated. After the adjustment this misdirection feels much more like a lie.
In the first minute or so of It’ll Be Okay, I was sure of the direction in which the film was headed–and I was enticed. I was ready for a hardcore emotional journey–but that never came. Had the dialogue been more realistic, the characters been better developed, or the cinematography stopped gyrating around the set like Elvis–maybe the story could have worked. However, with the number of flaws present in the film, a much simpler and much more relatable story could have kept it afloat. “It’ll Be Okay, the film is almost over” ultimately became the thing that I had to remind myself time and time again as I struggled through.
Directed by Richard Russell.
Written by Allison Marie Rogers.
Starring Douglas Esper, Allison Marie Rogers, Jacob Rayl, & Heather Bayles.
⭐⭐/10
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