“In My Father’s House” couldn’t have a better hook for a documentary: Man (who happens to be former major label rapper Rhymefest, born Che Smith) buys house where his dad grew up, gets inspired to seek out the man he hasn’t seen in decades, reconnects with his homeless, alcoholic father and takes on the role of parent as he works to rehabilitate someone who, as it turns out, wasn’t that far away once he started looking.
So it’s too bad that this Chicago-focused film, which held its red-carpet premiere Monday at Music Box, consistently struggles with storytelling. Don’t open a documentary with statistics about single-parent households tripling since 1960 and how fatherless kids make up the majority of youth suicides, high school dropouts, juvenile incarcerations and homeless children if you’re going to neither cite where those numbers came from nor open up the film into a bigger discussion of a very large issue. Directors Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg also do little to explore how Smith recovered from the 2006 debut album he says “bombed” and having houses he purchased go into foreclosure, or any impact on his children that stemmed from the days when he says a record deal led him to ignore his kids and do exactly what he promised he would never do: repeat his father’s mistakes. The filmmakers don’t even work to give a strong sense of place in south and west side neighborhoods that go largely undefined.
Still, when “In My Father’s House” focuses tightly on Smith (who is halfway to an EGOT thanks to co-writing Kanye’s “Jesus Walks” and John Legend/Common’s “Glory” from “Selma”) and his father, Brian Tillman, powerful human drama happens naturally. Their reunion could make a block of wood get choked up. Smith gradually evaluates his own role in his family and how growing up without a father affected him, and Tillman’s life changes due to the help he receives and the motivation he has to clean up, even altering the way he sees his best friend, recognizing a difference now that he’s trying to get sober.
So there’s definitely something here. “In My Father’s House” has vulnerability and a few laughs. But a story about reconnecting shouldn’t seem so uninterested in filling in the gaps.
2.5 stars (out of four)
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