Why Do I Care? | The Fundamentals of Caring Review

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The Fundamentals of Caring is the seventh original movie released by Netflix and is based on the novel of the same name by Jonathan Evison. The movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and came out almost a month ago, which is also when I saw it.

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The movie is very much dependent of its characters and mostly the dynamics between them. Paul Rudd is great as always. He’s bringing his excellent sense of humour and comedic timing and adds some great dramatic acting to that. However, this is mostly also thanks to his interaction with Craig Roberts, who delivers a tremendous performance as Trevor. His sense of humour resembles mine a lot and you really could believe him using humour as a way to deal with his situation. Lastly, there’s Selena Gomez. She does alright as Dot and gives the movie some fun moments.

There’s not an awful lot to the story, but that’s not necessary. The basic premise of this movie is that two people are going on a road trip and they come across some difficulties that they have to deal with. That’s it, but that’s what makes this movie good. This doesn’t need a complicated story with a lot of twists. It suffices to keep it simple and really focus on the interaction between the different character and their emotions.

While Trevor‘s disease is very important to the story, the focus lies more on the relationship between the two main characters. That aside, his disease is being dealt with very well and in a more humorous way, whilst not neglecting how it’s like to live with it and what the serious consequences and dangers are.
I feel like Ben‘s background could have been done better, because the flashbacks weren’t really working for me. They always showed the same thing and that didn’t exactly make sense to me, besides making us remember that it happened, but not to a point that it became bothersome. 

The screenwriters did a great job at having emotional and tense scenes that form a perfect balance with the lighter and more comedic scenes. Mostly also, because a lot of the emotional scenes are immediately followed by a joke or two.

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I really enjoyed watching this movie and it’s definitely worth your time as well. It’s a fun movie with great jokes that has a lot of emotional moments in it. It deals with diseases, relationships and life in a way that’s amusing to watch while perhaps still making you cry.
I’ll see you later!

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