Sometimes Always Never

A feisty Scrabble player may be at the heart of this British dramedy's plot, but it's a tile short of creating something noteworthy. It's just missing something -- it's simply not quite funny, compelling, or catchy enough. The issue may just be how very British it is: arid humor, stiff-upper-lip relations, and comedy beats about Pickwick's Top of the Pops albums and Marmite. While Sometimes Always Never is mostly appropriate for family viewing, teens and tweens are likely to turn to their phones in disinterest unless they're true Anglophiles.

And that's too bad, given that the movie is about a family that's bonded, for better or worse, over a board game that encourages brain sharpening. The family, including the missing Michael, shares a love of the lexicon, and the film introduces new words as well as using words in surprising ways (please, let's pick up the word "spruce" to mean looking sharp). It also encourages style: Alan is a sharp dresser who drives a stylish car, and the color schemes involve brightly colored contrasting tones. Sometimes Always Never doesn't quite come together (even the clever title doesn't totally work in relation to the story), but it holds promise. The offbeat script, finding the quiet quirkiness in mundane characters, and the strong contrasting color palette show that director Carl Hunter could be England's answer to Wes Anderson.