Lucas (Pedro Correa) is a young man from Reno, Nevada. A one-time skateboarding legend returns home at his mother’s behest and learns of his father’s death. She tells him his father left an apartment building in his name and that he has to deal with it. Lucas makes the trip to the City of Angels to survey and offload his new holdings. There Frank (Raymond Cruz) meets with him and tries to get him to fill his late father’s shoes. During his rounds, Lucas meets Sophie (Courtney Dietz) and the two hit it off despite her betrothal to Gavin (Simon Rex).
While exploring the city, Lucas runs into old friends, gets into new trouble, and avoids facing his father’s will and last words. This somewhat bizarre coming-of-age story has many twists and turns. It’s hard not to be interested in the lives around Lucas and it’s a shame the tenants of the building didn’t play more into the story. My Dead Dad aims to be inspiring and realistic, but ultimately the message the film tries to get across doesn’t even dive skin deep.
The film begins in memory, transported to a familiar yet foreign past by faux home video recordings and sepia tones. At another point, Lucas chases the spirit of his father in a dream. These moments and the paltry interactions with the building’s mostly nameless tenants were the strongest parts of the film. Ideas of expectations, family, emotion, and friendship are never really backed up by character action or development. For a film about emotion, this film really lacks feeling. Despite writing the character at least in part, Pedro Correa never really sells the role of Lucas and often drains the life out of a scene with his muttering monotone delivery and lack of emoting throughout most of the film.
Lucas and Sophie’s adulterous tryst seems tacked on and unnatural. Gavin being pitched as a ne’er-do-well makes less and less sense as it’s slowly revealed he is friendly and deeply cares for Sophie; his singular stated personality flaw is being a full-time DJ. The other few actions we’re supposed to take as him being shifty or unkind are repeated by Lucas and other ‘good’ characters which leaves room for a lot of confusion and misinterpretation. So much of the dramatic content makes no sense outside of chest-thumping machismo and makes much of the conflict seem entirely artificial. The pacing jerks and stutters, The B and C cast are more interesting characters, and any wisdom spoken seems saccharine and forced. Sadly, My Dead Dad is not recommended.