November 30, 2015 -- Husbands, wives and sons of terminally ill patients who act as care givers often get stressed out, but few get as stressed out as the title character in this film, James White (played by Christopher Abbott of “A Most Violent Year”). White goes from marginally functional to basket case to violent outbursts and back several times in this film.

The film opens with White getting drunk at a bar just prior to his father's funeral. He looks like he is stoned, barely functional. There are hints throughout the film about his rocky relationship with his father, but nothing is ever spelled out. Later, during a Shiva gathering, White erupts with anger because someone plays a video of his father's wedding ceremony to his first wife on the TV. He tells everyone to get out, immediately.

In another incident at a bar, he and a friend, Nick (Scott Mescudi of “Need for Speed”) get into a fist fight with the bartender and bouncer over the bar bill. White jumps over the bar and grabs a bottle of booze just before he and Nick run for it.

White heads off to Mexico to get away from it all and hooks up with a high school-aged girl. The two have a fling until he gets a call from his mother, Gail (Cynthia Nixon of “Sex and the City 2”). Gail has had another operation and the cancer has returned. He immediately flies back to New York City to take care of her. The time line of this story extends over several months.

Taking care of his mother, we see another side of White, the loving son. He tries hard to take care of his mother, but he is really not up to the increasingly difficult task of the full time care his mother needs. He tries to get her admitted to a hospital, but the hospital won't take her. His mother is confused, and acts very erratically.

White has something that looks like a near total nervous breakdown in the presence of his girlfriend and Nick. They finally manage to calm him down, but he looks like he could explode at any time. He keeps asking, “What am I supposed to do?” His mental state is tenuous enough that someone asks for a grief counselor to intervene, but White just walks away. He is in no mood. Like White's dark mood, the film has a dark and moody look to it as well.

White applies for a writing job, but is rejected because he clearly isn't prepared to handle the responsibilities of a job. He looks, and smells, like he is falling apart, his would be employer and friend, Ben (Ron Livingston of “The Conjuring”) tells him at the job interview. Ben tells White to take a few months and get his act together, then come back and try again.

White's harrowing journey is disturbing to watch, and so is his mother's decline. It is a story which doesn't seem to go anywhere. This is something that millions of families go through, though most handle it better than White, who has enough problems living on his own, let alone trying to be a full time care giver. The acting is good in this film, but the story doesn't hang together all that well because of White's enormous mood swings and the erratic behavior of both White and his mother. It is like an exhausting journey to nowhere. This film rates a C+.

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