ME THREE

Denial and naïveté only take an 11-year-old so far after the dad he worships gets nailed for sexual harassment.

After his Las Vegas celebrity poker player father checks into rehab following a flurry of what he terms “misunderstandings and false accusations,” Rodney suddenly finds himself lying low with his mom and teenage sister, Kate, in a small Arizona town, wondering why his best friend isn’t returning his texts. Though he starts out stoutly echoing his dad’s fulminations against “women who overreact to people being in their personal space,” Rodney’s defenses take hit after hit as his new classmates are polarized by the revelation of his true identity, his enraged sister plunges into disordered eating, and, on rare visits, he sees his once-larger-than-life dad turn sad and shabby. By the time he’s forced to admit the truth even to himself, though, he’s found allies to tell him what he needs to hear: that it’s not his fault, and he neither shares nor is responsible for his father’s character flaws. Juby ventures onto thorny ground with one male supporter’s tale of being falsely accused by a girl of inappropriate touching, but overall she apportions blame where it’s due. The secondary cast helps lighten the load, and the “Death Star of bad mood” Kate has a saving, if mordant, sense of humor: “What doesn’t kill you makes you a better Instagram poet.” The cast largely presents White.

Decidedly not about forgiving or forgetting…but offering a promise that pain and betrayal won’t last forever.