My Review of "All Together Now"

All Together Now is a Netflix exclusive that recently came out. It seemed like an uplifting movie about a teen needing help. What I got out of this was a somewhat predictable movie but was more of an emotional roller coaster ride than I thought it would be. I think they did a pretty good job in depicting certain troubles that real people have issues with.

This movie starts off with our main protagonist Amber Appleton. She's a really upbeat teenager that seems to be really over the top enthusiastic about life. She pretty much helps anyone around her that is in need and apparently has some singing talents that haven't yet been recognized.

The film soon flips itself upside down when we realize that she lives in a school bus with her mom and her pet dog. They have no money since her father had passed away. The only option they had was to live in the bus that her mom drives as her day job.

Still Amber and her mom are quite resilient and they seem to be making it despite their horrible situation. As an adult Amber's mom has to face some serious problems and sometimes she slips and falls back to alcohol and meets up with horrible ex boyfriends.

Amber soon realizes that her mother might be falling into another vicious cycle of substance abuse. As a child her situation is pretty messed up as well because it's hard to tell an adult that they're screwing up. How do you save yourself and your parent?

There's a lot of interesting questions that explores our personal egos. Why are we too proud to accept help? Our pride can get in the way of helping ourselves and in turn can further damage our own situations. Then they also talk about how we teach our own children to become just like us through our own actions. Although Amber disagrees with her mother and at times is very angry with her, she is still very much like her mother.

The biggest lesson that this movie tries to teach us is that we need to be able to accept help when we need it. There is no shame in accepting the help because we never know where we can get it. That is of course if we vet the proper channels for help. Sometimes help comes from the wrong places as is the case for Amber's mom. She was able to accept help from the wrong person and it doesn't really pay off in the end.

The ending is somewhat anti-climatic only because it's pretty predictable. They put in some nice touches to help with the emotions of the movie but overall it's a little corny like much of the Netflix exclusive young adult dramas they have. That's not entirely a bad thing. I find that these movies are sort of like comfort movies. You know what's coming and it still hits you because you want it to hit you in the feels. Not everyone enjoys these type of movies but there is a large population that does enjoy them and you know who you are.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty competent movie. It plays out well and I like the transformation of Amber throughout the movie. They really play up her issues close to the climax of the movie. It's almost comedic how much bad stuff happens to this girl. I know it's not supposed to be either. I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. It's entertaining enough to watch once. Unfortunately there is no replay value for this movie.