Custody | Film review - Soapy courtroom drama starring Viola Davis

Custody Catalina Sandino Moreno Jaden Michael — (Image credit: © 2016 Custody, LLC. ALL RIGHTS)

Human lives are messy! That appears to be the blindingly obvious message of Custody, a soapy courtroom drama in which the lives of three very different women converge in a New York family court. Viola Davis plays the firm but fair judge, an empty nester reeling from an unexpected bombshell in her marriage; Catalina Sandino Moreno is the struggling single mother with anger management issues who faces losing her children after a domestic accident; and Hayden Panettiere is her callow young lawyer, a trust-fund kid with family problems of her own. Will the law prove too rigid for a happy outcome? It’s all wildly contrived, but the classy and committed cast somehow make it work.

Certificate 12A. Runtime 104 mins. Director James Lapine

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A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.