This low-budget, US-made comedy-drama is full of sincerity and good intentions but that doesn’t quite get off the hook for its egregious sentimentality and copious cliches. But the well-directed (though somewhat artless) performances and competent assembly make it palatable enough to pass the time, especially if you have a particular interest in stories about living with a disability.
The protagonist is surly war veteran and wheelchair-user Patrick (Tobias Forrest, who uses a wheelchair in real life). When he’s not drunk, in a strip club or both, he’s down at the social security office bickering with the staff. (The fact that there’s still an office he can wheel into betrays the fact this was made well before the Trump administration and Doge started gutting the agency.) One day, a pair of social workers show up and inform Patrick that he’s the father of a four-year-old girl, Camilla (Victoria Scott, adorable), who he never knew existed. Her mother has just died from cancer, and Camilla’s options are limited to either staying with Patrick (her upkeep will be paid for by a life insurance policy that kicks out $4k a month), moving in with her grandparents on the other side of the country, or going into foster care.
Patrick agrees to take in his daughter, but of course he has a learning curve as steep and smooth as a shard of glass. As luck would have it, comely children’s furniture store assistant Anna (Abigail Hawk) is keen to offer some pointers, although her attraction to Patrick seems a little unfeasible given how grumpy and bad at sexting he is. Eventually, he also gets help from his equally grumpy nextdoor neighbour Robert (John W Lawson), who, like Patrick, is living with a disability.
When Patrick decides he’s not responsible enough to raise Camilla, Robert is the only person with a car whom he can persuade to drive him and the kid across country to the aforementioned grandparents. This affords the film a chance to indulge in all the indie road movie cliches, and forge some new ones of its own, which fills out the feature length until it’s time for hugs, apologies and last act reconciliations, wrapped up with still shots over the credits showing everything worked out hunky dory.