Parents' Guide to Nothing to Lose

This drama has its heart in the right place since we all root for a parent trying to save a sick child. But here, the mom breaks into an office building. She uses her physical skills to wrestle with a cop, grab his gun, and take an entire pediatric hospital ward hostage. At this point, the movie loses its grip on reality. And in early scenes, Jada and Paul seem to give up on having a kid. Then, suddenly, it's 10 years later, and Noa exists and Paul is out of the picture. What happened? Is Noa adopted? Did they miraculously get pregnant? How did they have him? Disjointed narrative and magical thinking override reality.

The emphasis is on giving Jada a superhero aura, both physical and psychic. She has raised the kid alone. She doesn't need the boy's dad's help, even in this new crisis. Even the medical testing is magical. Bone marrow compatibility testing usually takes days or weeks to yield results. Here, it happens in minutes. And as much as we sympathize with and admire a parent who will do anything for her kid, it's pretty outrageous that Jada demands someone else's child be tested and be forced to donate bone marrow. That fact saps the movie of its emotional impact. Up to that point, Noa's slow decline is moving. But when his mom starts acting like a superhero to force a rich couple to test their child, the movie feels forced and improbable.