A stripped-down, small-scale film without the conventions of narrative formula might be a means to grab attention if an A-list star is attached, but it’s not a winning strategy for a production without any big names. Writer/director David Fortune was named a “filmmaker to watch” in 2025 after his feature debut, Color Book, debuted at a few minor festivals, but it took two years for the film to stream. Color Book is a hard film to advertise given its straightforwardness suggests blandness, but Fortune’s ability to find profundity within the familiar has ensured it’s hard to deny his talent.
The “all-in-one-night” format is most often associated with comedies like After Hours or Superbad, but in Color Book it’s the source of a frustratingly truncated act of paternal empathy. It’s established early enough that the protagonist Lucky (William Catlett) has recently lost his wife, but this isn’t the point of the film; rather than an emotional twist used to generate empathy for the main characters, Lucky’s struggles as a single father are an aspect of his reality that the rest of the film’s events have to be filtered through. There’s no concrete details given about the circumstances in which Lucky’s wife died, but it’s made clear that he hasn’t figured out what it means to be a sole provider for his son Mason (Jeremiah Alexander Daniels), who has Down syndrome. Lucky can teach Mason to read, cook him breakfast, and recognize his emotions, but there’s an unconscious fear within him that he’s not adequate. Fortune doesn’t explain this in a tell-all monologue or a flashback; rather, Lucky’s so focused on being understanding that his flashes of frustration exemplify the anxiety he’s coped with.
Lucky’s decision to take Mason to a baseball game mentioned to him by a family friend in Metro Atlanta is prompted by a brief, but tense moment in which his car has a bad start. Lucky loses his cool, and an Mason has inadvertently seen his father as being fallible. There’s nothing more all-American than baseball, especially since it’s something that Mason has expressed interest in; Lucky has understood that he doesn’t have the warmth of Mason’s mother, and any opportunity to forge a personal moment should be taken up immediately.
What follows is a cavalcade of issues in which no one’s really at fault; Lucky has to show patience with Mason and anticipate how he might react to any setbacks in their journey, but that’s easier said than done when his luck has run dry. Fortune doesn’t depict Lucky as a magnet for chaos in the vein of Clark Griswold. Rather, there’s a misunderstanding on his part that everything will go according to plan; Lucky’s succeeded as a father when he’s in control of the environment that Mason is in. Color Book isn’t a kinetic film, but its progression is so consistent that the casual reminders of the loss that has haunted both father and son is still fresh.
The most striking aesthetic choice in Color Book is the decision to shoot in black-and-white; a recurring motif of Lucky teaching Mason to sound out words using a coloring book is used to isolate the believability of the performances, given that the viewer can’t identify the color wheel immediately. Most films look better in black-and-white, but it’s particularly appropriate for Color Book because of the story’s relationship with memory. The biggest lesson learned by Lucky is that he can’t be expected to be perfect, and that only the most defining memories will stick with Mason. They could be as simple as the fireworks above a stadium or a lone balloon flailing in the wind, the likes of which could be captured in a still, black-and-white photograph.
That the film’s so limited in its timeline is a smart decision. It’s hard to imagine how Lucky could hold down a job or arrange for Mason to attend school when his average day is so hazardous, but these concerns don’t collapse the reality of the specific, goal-based narrative. The brief glimpses of the outside world are idealistic, but Fortune’s optimism about human nature isn’t a determent. The film was inspired by his experiences as a camp counselor for teenagers with Down syndrome, and was presumably made in an effort to humanize the experience.
Color Book is a film in need of any advantages that it can get, which is why its R-rating is such an unfortunate sign of the MPAA’s continued irrelevance. Even if the rating isn’t likely going to be noticed by the Netflix viewers who scroll past Color Book on their homepage, it’s ridiculous that an empathetic family story is stuck with an R-rating because of a few vulgarities; apparently, it’s in the same category of The Brutalist, John Wick, Obsession, and any number of violent, heavy, or disturbing films. It’s an issue that the MPAA has been called out for before, and it's particularly glaring to see the R-Rating given to Color Book while there are violent films in theaters right now, like The End of Oak Street and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, that walked away with PG-13s. Color Book is deserving of a family audience because it might encourage adults to admit that their efforts don’t go unnoticed, and allow kids to learn a little bit more about what their parents go through.