The debut feature from Lauren Miller Rogen, Like Father marks a confident next step for the actress turned writer and producer on 2012’s middling For A Good Time Call…, and she takes the same gently spikey, slightly left-field approach to the romcom and pushes it into a generational family drama instead – telling the tale of a workaholic daughter and an absentee dad forced to reconnect on a luxury holiday. Implausible hook aside (what kind of cruise company would let two comatose people check in during the middle of the night?!), the groundwork is laid for the real meat of the film: getting Bell and Grammer to do what they do best. Rogen’s more famous husband, Seth, gets a bit-part as Bell’s affable rebound (along with the film’s funniest line, about him not being a pot smoker), but the movie belongs to the two leads who look, as usual, like they barely have to try. Between all the lovingly curated shots of the spacious suites, award-winning musicals, exciting waterslides and luxury fine dining, Bell and Grammer are so likeable and effortless that it almost doesn’t matter that you’re watching an advert. It’s ironic that a film about a marketing executive overworking herself should so clearly have been cooked up by a marketing executive who overworked herself. It was also a terrible idea to include a scene where Grammer watches the original Overboard in his room, reminding everyone they could be watching a much better, much funnier film about two people on a boat. Still, there’s enough heart in Like Father to not stay mad at it for too long. You won’t laugh out loud but you will feel better for having watched it. Even if this isn’t the Frasier/Veronica Mars crossover we’ve all secretly been hoping for, it’s always enough to see Bell and Grammer doing pretty much anything – even if they are trying to sell us a cruise…
