Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Palmer’ on Apple TV+, a Melodrama in Which Justin Timberlake Finds Redemption in a Gender-Nonconforming Boy

Apple TV+ exclusive movie Palmer attempts to defibrillate Justin Timberlake’s acting career, which in recent years has dwindled to voicing a singing gnome-dude in Trolls and a role in a Woody Allen movie that’s better off forgotten. He headlines this weirdly R-rated melodrama, playing an ex-con who strikes up a friendship with a young boy who lives next door. It’s probably not going to put an Oscar on JT’s mantel, but maybe it’ll warm a heart or two this weekend.

PALMER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Smalltown Louisiana. Eddie Palmer (Timberlake), or just Palmer unless you’re his grandmother (June Squibb), is fresh out of prison. His brow furrows; his face is a perma-half-scowl. Once, he was the high-school football star, a quarterback with a college scholarship and a bright future. Obviously, that all went to heck in a handheld hellbasket, and now, he’s an adult, hardened by a dozen years in the big house, lowercase, because his football career was kaput. He’s living with his grandmother, and side-eyed by the townsfolk no matter where he goes — to the grocer for Grandma, to church because she makes him, to the parole office, to wherever he applies for a job. The supermarket manager says the position posted on the window is already filled, but he sure seems to be lying. Palmer has a better go at the janitor job at the elementary school, where he gets forthright as all git-out during an interview. It works, and we believe him too.

He convenes with his old buds at the bar, including a somewhat notable crumb named Daryl (Stephen Louis Grush), to open a can of whupass on some Coors Light tallboys. The evening ends with a sweaty humparoo with Shelly (Juno Temple), who just so happens to be renting a trailer from Grandma Palmer, right next door to Grandma Palmer. Palmer walk-of-shames across the lawn the next morning, past Grandma Palmer, and past the boy she’s babysitting. That would be Sam (Ryder Allen), who happens to be Shelly’s son. The only way this whole sitch could be more embarrassing was if Palmer’d lost his pants and hoofed it back bare-assed. Shelly’s dating a mulleted human fart played by the pager salesman on 30 Rock (Dean Winters), and she does a lot of drugs, and sometimes just disappears for days, leaving Sam with Grandma Palmer. And that happens again, so Palmer’s life gets even more awkward.

But then. One day. Something happens that you can probably guess would happen, but I won’t say it because I’d feel bad about it, because it feels spoilery even though it happens early in the movie. Suffice to say, Palmer and Sam are left to tough it out alone, and it’s a weird dynamic, considering Palmer is a tough-guy type who works with his damn hands and Sam is a gender-nonconforming seven-or-eightish-year-old who wears a barrette in his hair, plays with dolls and adores a fairy-princess TV cartoon. Before you know it, Palmer is: introducing the kid to the wonders of root beer floats; learning what a playdate is; fending off Sam’s bullies by threatening violence on a child (!); come-hithering Sam’s teacher, Maggie (Alisha Wainwright); and sitting down for tea parties. So is it me, or is Palmer’s gaze softening? But it isn’t all so easy, because third-act complications sure are plentiful round these here parts.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The ex-con-befriends-a-kid plot resembles that of grossly underrated Nicolas Cage/David Gordon Green film Joe, with echoes of About a Boy and Sling Blade.

Performance Worth Watching: The performances are universally strong in the face of the screenplay’s weary familiarity — Squibb, Wainwright and Allen are equally committed to bringing a little something extra to the table. But ultimately, the film wouldn’t work at all if Timberlake didn’t convince us that his hardened character was worthy of tenderization.

Memorable Dialogue: Palmer gives Sam some fatherly wisdom: “You can never trust a guy with a mullet.”

Sex and Skin: Some wholly unnecessary sex scenes between Timberlake and Temple, and Timberlake and Wainwright, narrow the viewership of a movie that might otherwise be deemed decent family viewing with a solid moral. So it goes.

Our Take: For the life of me, I can’t figure out how this movie doesn’t have a montage in it. Go figure, since Palmer adheres to nearly every other cliche of the mismatched-buddy/unlikely-father-figure/redemption-story melodrama. You know, when no one else will love them, they’ll love each other, and all that. The plot teases out the what-happened-to-Palmer stuff, nurtures some mild comedy and heavy drama and light romance, eases into Palmer’s begrudging-to-loving acceptance of the kid, etc. It’s not difficult to feel invested in the story — I’m as vulnerable to bleeding-heart rehab-of-the-soul cornball stuff as the next person, and it does that well, although its overly predictable qualities mean we never get to the point of happy-crying snotwads into our shirtsleeves at the end.

All this is fine as far as surface-level feelgoodisms go, but the film doesn’t stand up under much scrutiny. Sam, although rendered inarguably adorable by Allen, teeters perilously close to being a plot device, the catalyst for the straight white male protagonist’s personal change. There’s little interest in exploring why Palmer always cracks a tallboy first thing in the morning; he’s underwritten, and Timberlake, although having decent screen presence, doesn’t show quite enough depth to nonverbally fill in some of the blanks. And the Shelly character seems lifted from a bad-mom crack-baby TV movie from 1992; she and her abusive boyfriend are little more than paper dolls clipped out of the Big Book of Trailer Trash Stereotypes. And again, the effing and the eff-bombs and its adult-centric themes feel completely superfluous, the movie’s edges sandpapered too sharp to be truly huggable — or embraced by younger LGBTQ audiences seeking a bit of rare on-screen representation. If the movie was about Sam and his experiences instead of just another troubled adult trailing beer cans and regret, it’d immediately be fresher and more relevant instead of the same old stuff.

Our Call: A borderline STREAM IT. Palmer means well and has a warm heart, which mostly covers up its flaws.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Palmer on Apple TV+