i enjoyed it but found the plot a little contrived. it did not make sense that frank would give up a good job that had health insurance to become a self employed boat repairs person, particularly as he had a child to look after, where health insurance and regular working hours would be highly preferable. it is almost as though that part of the plot was added to give justification to the custody battle, which is of course is exactly why that storyline was added.

the other contrived part was frank agreeing to have the child placed in foster care. since his mother was willing to make an offer, how come it did not occur to him to offer an alternative, such as agreeing to move in with his mum until he found more suitable employment?

the best scenes were definitely at the end. i could not have told my mum that her daughter did not want her life's work to be published until her mum was dead. it's too hurtful.

will frank go back to teaching or continue to work on boats?

I suspect that Frank left "the ivory tower" to connect Mary with Real Life and Real People. (His mother was going to lock up her "Baby genius" in Academia, just like she did his sister.) Moving as far South as possible and ditching his career was a "witness protection"-level move that couldn't have been easy. So he's a "Mike Rowe/Dirty Jobs" fellow who manahed to home school an alomst-well-balanced-kid, which is quite a feat, these days. A predictable movie about an unconventional family, but not everyone has a one-eyed-cat!

@Otokichi786 said:

I suspect that Frank left "the ivory tower" to connect Mary with Real Life and Real People. (His mother was going to lock up her "Baby genius" in Academia, just like she did his sister.) Moving as far South as possible and ditching his career was a "witness protection"-level move that couldn't have been easy. So he's a "Mike Rowe/Dirty Jobs" fellow who manahed to home school an alomst-well-balanced-kid, which is quite a feat, these days. A predictable movie about an unconventional family, but not everyone has a one-eyed-cat!

I hadn't twigged that that was his motivation for moving, but in the absence of other explanations I think you are right. It seems they wanted to make sure Frank didn't come across as a complete bum in order to keep the viewer on-side.

I thought it was pretty good, but laid things on a bit thick and 'contrived' is probably a fair comment. Lots of loose ends for me though. If the girl didn't agree to Fred being taken away then can we assume the foster father lied when he said she didnt want to see Frank and therefore was a horrible person in cahoots with the grandmother for financial gain? Or is it that the girl's mind was poisoned against Frank by her pantomime villain grandmother? I'm not sure I should be having to guess this about a film that was so happy to lead me by the nose on so many other plot points.

7/10 (being generous)