One could call Like Father (2018) a long advertisement for the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line.  Having recently been on a similar sized ship, I am okay with it.  In delving a little deeper into the background behind the film, I happened to notice some of what the critics had to say about it.  A puzzling comment I saw stated that the movie does nothing to challenge the negative stereotypes attached to romantic comedies.  I find this slightly confusing because the female and male leads, respectively Rachel (Kristen Bell) and Harry Hamilton (Kelsey Grammer), are daughter and dad.  Given this little factoid, I am not sure I would call this a “romantic comedy.”  Sure, it has some elements, but those same familiar tropes do not really apply in light of the familial relationship.  Further, I hope to show you that there is a little more going on than what you might expect in this variety of flick, and thus why you might want to watch it.

I guess the reason why Like Father is labeled a romantic comedy is because it starts with a wedding.  Rachel is about to marry Owen (Jon Foster), though she cannot seem to get her mind off work.  The fact that her attention is divided is evident, and thus she misses when Harry slips into the congregation.  They have not seen each other in twenty-six years.  Much later we learn that this pertains to him leaving when she was five and, as a result, her building up a great deal of resentment towards him and them not speaking.  Either way, he is on hand when Owen, seeing Rachel’s work phone spills from her bouquet, decides to call off the wedding at the altar.  In the resulting chaos, Harry attempts to make it to the exit but is spotted by Rachel.  Instead of going after her estranged dad, she gets into a taxi, goes home, and is at work the next day.  Her boss, Frank Lerue (Brett Gelman), and the head of the advertising firm at which she works, suggests that she needs to get away.  She responds with the classic, “I’m fine,” which we all know what that means.  To underscore this fact, following a meltdown in the office, she proceeds to begin to get drunk at home.  She is already several drinks in when Harry rings at her building.  He is there to try to reconnect, though she is not interested.  What draws her out, aside from him promising not to say anything, is the offer to continue boozing.  This goes well into the next morning, with them in their inebriated state getting into the car scheduled to pick her up for her honeymoon.  She awakens a few hours later in the honeymoon suite on the ship, Harry asleep on the couch.  He tries to make the best of it, but Rachel wants to get separate rooms as soon as possible.  Of course, they are all booked.  Thus, they agree to go their separate ways once they get to their first destination, Jamaica.  In the meantime, she is intent on keeping herself totally engrossed in her work in order to ignore Harry.  If you have ever been on a cruise, you will know that you get sat with a set group for your planned meals.  It is an opportunity to get to know others, something else in which Rachel shows little interest.  To further distance herself from him, Rachel strikes up a conversation with the recently divorced Jeff (Seth Rogen), who is on the cruise alone.  While there is a brief moment of bonding between Harry and Rachel when they win a couple’s game show, any good will is dissolved when he goes looking for her during the night she spends with Jeff.  She cannot understand why he would suddenly be interested after all these years, and is not ready to let go of her resentment.  The next day they finally get to Jamaica, and Jeff has invited himself along with their group on a hike to a waterfall, thinking there is more to what he had shared with Rachel than a one-night stand.  The fact that it was just a fling is not the only revelation.  Seeing his daughter continue to be absorbed in her work, he takes her phone and throws it in the water.  After the anger over this act dissipates, they finally have a discussion about what had been going on over the past decade and a half.  He loves his daughter, but when he started going back to work, it seemed like his daughter and wife were happier without him.  Thus, he stuck with Gabe, his best friend and business partner.  Since she is a workaholic herself, she knows that that life is like and, while it still hurts, is willing to accept his heartfelt apologies.  There is one last hurtle to overcome.  On the last day of their voyage, before going on stage to hopefully win the ship-wide karaoke contest, Rachel learns that Harry is bankrupt.  Her initial reaction is to believe that he had come to her to get money from her to pay his debts.  Once he is able to get her to calm down, he explains that he wants no such thing.  Yes, he is broke, but he is handling it.  The negative cash flow is the result of him taking care of Gabe, who had developed Alzheimer’s.  Their business had gone away, and he borrowed in order to pay the medical bills.  Thus humbled, and appreciating her dad in a new way, they go on to win the contest.  She also promises to come to California to help him pack his house and move, though her new promotion at work complicates this plan.  Before her and Brett can fly to meet a client, she decides in the airport that she needs more time and travels to Los Angeles instead.  We close with her showing up as Harry is beginning to move, him telling his daughter that he had never stopped loving her.

I like sweet movies, and Like Father is a sweet movie.  As I debated whether to choose it, I thought about my own dad and the relationship I have with him.  It is nothing like this movie, just so we are clear.  Everyone has a unique relationship with their parents, but fathers in particular are called upon in the Christian tradition to model Christ.  Good seeks this of all of us to a degree, but men raising children have a special role when viewed through the lens of the Holy Trinity.  One of the aspects of this pillar of the Faith is God the Father.  Jesus refers to God in this manner throughout the Gospels, and there is also a lot of language about how, due to the dynamic between God the Father and God the Son, we who follow Him are brothers and sisters through a spirit of adoption.  With such a family, every succeeding generation is looked to in order to be, yes, Like Father.  Granted, Harry does not provide the best example of this behavior.  It is difficult to be a proper Christian model without being present.  After all, God is always with us.  Yet, what strikes me most about what we see from Harry in his approach to Rachel is his patience.  He knows he was wrong for leaving his family.  While God will never need to ask for our forgiveness, He is also infinitely patient in forgiving us.  You can see this in this weekend’s Gospel reading, Matthew 18:21-35.  In it, Jesus tells His disciples that they must forgive their brothers and sisters seventy-seven times.  This might sound like a specific number, but it is actually intended to mean as many times as they ask.  Now, true reconciliation can take many forms, but credit must be given to Rachel for eventually doing so with her father.  However that may look for you, it takes the kind of patience that can only come from being led by God.

I could have done without some of the language, and the one-night stand between Jeff and Rachel, in Like Father.  There is also a scene when the hiking party stops to smoke weed because, I guess, Jamaica.  Outside of these elements, you have a good movie about forgiveness.  I do not think you can ask for much more.