Throughout the movie you deeply get the uncomfortability of the kid that feel harmless, powerless in front of the chaos with which the events happens and the unpredictability of his parents' behavior.
At the same time this over-the-top behavior feels also unnatural and the characters less real, less authentic and therefore it's difficult to sympathize or at least emphasize with them.
So at the end the movie kinda works, technically it's beautiful, but it's clear that it could have been better, more evolving and that's a bit underwhelming.
It's still a promising debut for Paul Dano.
