Don't Make Me Go Review: "Emotional, lightweight and heartfelt, the film is uplifted with a moving performance by John Cho"

Don't make me Go is an emotionally moving story about a terminally ill man and his daughter told with a lot of heart and humor. John Cho plays Max who decides to cram all the layers of love and happiness he will miss with his daughter Wally, played by Mia Isaac.They embark on a long-due and much awaited road trip from California to New Orleans to participate in his college reunion where he secretly hopes to reunite his daughter with her mom.

 

Apparently inspired from her own life's experiences, screen writer Vera Herbert instills a good deal of realism and believability into the father-daughter bonding that finds strength in their banters, disagreements and love in the company of each other.

 

Cho and Isàac forge a great chemistry, their dynamics shine through the bright and the combative moments.Max procrastinates his surgery so that he can spend a solid year with her girl.While the plan is ambitious and overt on paper , it goes awry, making you to believe it.

 

But the treatment with Max's estranged wife is saddled with frivolity. We are not given to understand what exactly went so wrong between them that she has grown so hostile towards her daughter. The climactic portions also raise an eyeball-swirling disbelievability.

 

But what invests you are the fine performances from the lead cast. Cho is pitch perfect as the father. Over the years, he has been glossing his act playing the father to a daughter( Searching 2018) and this one packs an emotional wallop.

 

Isaac, on the other hand, plays the teenager with flaws and frailties superbly. A bulk of credit goes to director Hannah Marks for handling the love and tension deftly. 

 

On the whole, Don't Make Me Go is a good film had it not been for its acidic finish. I go with 3 stars.