MOTIVATION IS A KEY INGREDIENT IN a person’s journey through life; I firmly believe this. It is the reason one has for behaving or acting a certain way. For example, I wanted to feel better about myself and be able to buy clothing off the rack from any store; so, I went on a diet to lose weight. Another example was my dream to visit all 50 states. I let pass social opportunities so I could save money to fund my travel plans. As long as I can remember, whenever I was motivated to do something I never had a completion date associated to it. In other words, if there was something I wanted to do or get I would stick with it until I reached my goal. Is this the norm? I do not know. From my experiences, I have seen so many variations in a person’s motivation. Now let me say upfront I found it difficult to be sympathetic to an individual who wanted to achieve something but was not motivated to go get it. I had a friend who desperately wanted to be in a love relationship; not a conversation would go by without him mentioning what he would do if he had a significant other. The problem as I saw it was he did nothing to try and meet people. I do not know if he was expecting people to come knocking on his door.      WITH THE LAST EXAMPLE I DESCRIBED, the other aspect that contributes to me being unsympathetic is when the person blames others for the predicament they placed themselves in. Recognition is the first step in solving a problem. The friend I described above once in a while would meet someone by happenstance, while grocery shopping or riding the train. If they struck up a conversation and eventually went out on a couple of dates, my friend would already start to think ahead of what might happen. However, if the few dates went nowhere, he was always quick to place blame on the other person. They were conceited, stuffy, high maintenance were some of the excuses he would express to me. After hearing the same excuses over time, I had to finally suggest to him that maybe he should take a look at the things he was doing. You would have thought I was accusing him of murder or fraud; he said he was doing nothing wrong. At that point I was done and knew there was no sense in trying to reason with him. I believe I would have come to the same conclusion with the main character in this comedy.     WITH NO JOB AND NO SOURCE OF INCOME; Susan, played by Sean Hayes (The Three Stooges, Will & Grace-TV), had to rely on getting money from her mother. However, the arrangement wouldn’t last if her brother had something to say about it. With Carrie Aizley (For Your Consideration, Transparent-TV) as Corrin, Margo Martindale (The Hollars, August: Osage County) as Mary, Allison Janney (Hairspray, The Girl on the Train) as Velvet and Danny Johnson (Daredevil-TV, Shades of Blue-TV) as Leon; I thought the story was interesting at the start. The cast was well suited for their roles, but I felt the script dragged on for a good portion of the film. Sean was just okay in the role; there was nothing unique to his acting. I would have preferred knowing more about how the dynamics between Susan and her family came to be. As it stood, the story did not go anywhere for me; everything seemed to stay on one level. Except for the occasional humorous scene, my pulse did not get a rise from this picture. Maybe it was expecting me to find the good parts to the plot?

1 ¾ stars