Wilson

A cranky middle-aged curmudgeon (Woody Harrelson) reconnects with his ex-wife (Laura Dern) and learns that he has a biological daughter who was given up for adoption (Isabella Amara); his efforts to cobble together some sort of family with them lead, like just about everything he’s ever done, to disaster. Adapting his own graphic novel, writer Daniel Clowes leaves in the comic-book clumps of the original—setup-punchline, setup-punchline—and director Craig Johnson fails to smooth them out or to instill the liberating unpredictability that Terry Zwigoff gave another Clowes adaptation, Ghost World, in 2001. But there’s still some cranky fun along the way, what with Harrelson’s slovenly charm and Dern’s attitude of bedraggled exasperation (both of them show a refreshing lack of movie-star vanity). J.L.