Wish I Was Here

Wish I Was Here (2014) is Zach Braff's dramedy, available to watch online on iFILM. Aidan is 35, an actor without roles, a husband and a father of two, and he is still working out what he wants to be when he grows up.

Money is tight. Aidan's father had long paid for the kids' private religious school, but his savings now go toward his own cancer treatment. The nearby public school is falling apart, so Aidan reluctantly pulls his son and daughter out to home-school them himself. Teaching them his own way, he starts facing the things he kept putting off: his bond with a dying father, his shut-in brother, and a wife who has quietly carried the household on one paycheck. Kate Hudson plays that wife, Mandy Patinkin the father, and young Joey King the daughter.

Braff made this after Garden State, partly funding it through a crowdsourced campaign, and again took the lead himself. It is a quiet film about faith, parenting and growing up well past thirty, carried by a signature soundtrack and a sadness stitched through with jokes. It will land for anyone drawn to melancholy indies about ordinary family dead ends. Stream Wish I Was Here (2014) online on iFILM.