‘Color Book’ Review: A Newly Widowed Dad and His Son With a Disability Rebuild in Moving Indie Debut

variety.com:

Lisa Kennedy When Lucky lets himself lean ever so slightly into the groove of a soul classic playing on the radio of his newly purchased old ride, it is a moment of understated beauty the understated gem “Color Book.” The same holds for writer-director David Fortune’s debut.

He slides into a precise yet gentle groove in telling the story of Lucky (William Catlett) and his 11-year-old son Mason (Jeremiah Daniels) as they begin navigating a space rearranged by an unexpected, upending death.

To state that Lucky is the newly single dad to a child with Down syndrome seems both apt and somehow overstates what is handled with an unblinking, quiet care. “Color Book” delivers lo-fi pleasures (cueing Roy Ayers’s “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” for instance) and struts high-fidelity clarity (cinematographer Nikolaus Summerer’s crisp palette of inky charcoals, soft grays and luminous whites).

Yet, what this spare drama truly offers is a new category. Call it “deep fidelity,” in which the filmmaker captures without flash or pretense the material, emotional and even spiritual lives of his protagonists.