Aahana Swrup
The Michael J. Weithorn directorial drama film ‘The Best You Can’ presents a soul-stirring story about the bigger, existential questions of life as experienced by an unlikely pair. Cynthia Rand is a urologist whose marriage to her much-older husband, Warren, has only ever been a source of adventure. However, some of it has begun to dim in their old age, wherein the latter’s cognitive decline arrives much faster than his wife’s. On the other hand, there is Stan Olszewski, a security guard, trying to make up for his past mistakes as a father by supporting his daughter, Sammi’s tumultuous music career. When a home invasion attempt—and a tricky prostate problem—put Stan and Cynthia in each other’s path, it leads to an unexpected but pleasant friendship that unravels with highs and lows of the duo’s complicated lives. SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Best You Can Plot Synopsis
Despite the 20+ years between them, Cynthia and Warren had never really felt the weight of their age gap throughout the many years together. When they first got together, the former was in her 30s and progressing well in her medical career. Therefore, the couple managed to evade some of the typical fallbacks of an age gap relationship. That is, until Warren enters his late 80s and the effects of his old age begin to set in, starting with something that looks eerily similar to dementia. Consequently, a burglar manages to break into the couple’s house on the one night Warren forgets to set the home alarm. Fortunately, a neighbor manages to spot the unusual activity and calls their security detail at Brooklyn Private Security Patrol in time. Even so, when security guard Stan arrives on the scene and tries to chase after the burglar, the masked criminal manages to escape. However, it does open up space for eccentric introductions between Stan and Cynthia.
Cynthia learns that Stan is undergoing some medical complications at the moment, particularly with his prostate. As a result, she advises him to make an appointment with her own clinic for a check-up. The incident also compels the urologist to become concerned about her husband’s mental faculties, which is why she encourages him to finish the book he had been wanting to write about the Watergate scandal. Eventually, this only further cements his dementia. For the same reason, Cynthia ends up hiring a home nurse, Pramila, who has to pose as a PhD student/researcher in front of Warren. Meanwhile, Stan tries to help his daughter, Sammi, as she struggles to find open nights and cafe gigs to support her musical aspirations. Nonetheless, despite their current amicable relationship, the dark cloud of their taut past looms over the father-daughter duo.
However, both Stan and Cynthia find a break from the complications of their private lives through the budding friendship that grows between them, primarily over text. Inevitably, when the guard’s paths cross with Warren’s, due to a doorbell installation visit, the latter ends up inviting the other man to a steak dinner. Around the same time, the urologist accidentally sends him a harmless text meant for someone else, divulging the fact that she thinks he’s attractive. As a result, the following evening, Stan ends up bringing his casual hook-up, CJ, a younger supermarket clerk, as his plus-one for dinner. Naturally, the growing tension between the two, paired with the optics of an older-man/younger-woman relationship, manifests in some friction from Cynthia’s side.
Still, the duo is able to get back to their normal groove soon enough. That is, until Cynthia finds herself faced with an unexpected scenario. Following a visit, her stepdaughter, Rosemary, pitches the idea of moving her father to an old-age care facility in Cleveland so that he can be closer to his family. Knowing that her career makes it impossible for the urologist to provide her husband with the kind of care he needs, she agrees to check the place out. However, an emergency makes Rosemary pull out of the plans at the last minute, leaving her stepmother to face the music all alone. For the same reason, she’s all the more surprised when Stan shows up outside of her hotel, having driven the entire night to offer her his moral support after hearing her complaint about it the previous night. This visit ends up leading to something more as the duo, perhaps ill-advisedly, hook up with each other.
The Best You Can Ending: Do Stan and Cynthia End Up Together?
Throughout the narrative, Cynthia and Stan’s relationship remains a unique one. From the time of their first meeting, the former is in a marriage that, for the most part, is a happy one. Aside from the challenges posed by Warren’s old age, there’s no real conflict in the duo’s relationship that suggests there is any love lost between them. However, the challenges of old age themselves prove to be a heavy weight. When they first met, Cynthia fell in love with Warren’s sharp mind and his formidable strength. He was an assistant chief counsel during the Watergate scandal and has been a prominent writer throughout his career. Nonetheless, with his dementia, many of these qualities that made his wife fall for him in the first place have started to diminish.
After several happy and successful years together, their relationship is beginning to turn less and less into a partnership. Even though Cynthia should have known such a day would come, given their age gap, she never truly comprehended what that might look like. Furthermore, despite all the hardships, she has no regrets and still holds much love for her husband. Still, there is a stark lack of romance, intimacy, and attraction in her life. For the same reason, she can’t help but give in to the easy chemistry that comes with Stan’s friendship. Their connection begins innocently enough, but there’s no denying the sparks of attraction flying between the two. Eventually, a day out of town becomes the final catalyst in solidifying this budding romance. By showing up for Cynthia at a challenging and lonely time in her life, Stan offers her something that has been sorely missing from her life for a long time: a partnership.
Moreover, Stan brings a sprinkle of unexpected fun into her life by convincing her to crash a wedding with him after the depressing facility visit. All of this culminates in a night together. Nonetheless, things can’t be that simple between the duo. Cynthia is bound to feel betrayed about sleeping with Stan because she feels like she betrayed her husband, whom she never truly stopped loving. Even though this briefly puts some distance between the duo, Stan inevitably returns to the doctor’s life in the aftermath of Warren’s funeral. Like before, he once again becomes a pillar of support for Cynthia by sharing his own shortcomings to make her feel better about her own. Ultimately, the road ahead remains a rocky one for the duo. The grief of Warren’s death, paired with the normal complications of beginning a new relationship, will make the future complex for the couple. Nonetheless, if their time together has proven anything, it’s that Stan and Cynthia can lean on each other as they move forward in life.
What Happened Between Stan and Sammi? Why Does She Blame Him?
One of the most significant aspects of Stan’s narrative stems from his relationship with his daughter, Sammi. From the get-go, it’s evident that there is some conflict in the father-daughter duo’s past. Stan is clearly trying to do a better job of being in the young musician’s life by offering his support and help whenever possible. However, in doing so, it becomes obvious that the two went through a rough patch that Stan feels like he has to make up for. The story sprinkles in bits and pieces of their background, such as the fact that Stan moved away to Colorado for selfish reasons during Sammi’s childhood. Nevertheless, most of their past remains shrouded in ambiguity for the most part.
Except towards the end of the story, Stan shares one story with Cynthia about the earliest blunders of his parenting. When Sammi was around 10 years old, he took her camping in the mountains despite her lack of enthusiasm. While they were camping, the daughter complained about an earache due to the high-altitude environment. As a result, the father poured peroxide into the kid’s ear, but ended up overshooting the mark. Consequently, some of the stuff ended up getting in Sammi’s eyes, which created a medical emergency. In a moment of chaos, Stan splashed some peroxide in his own eye to gauge the gravity of the emergency. Naturally, this created a whole new problem.
In the end, as the two tried to rush to the car to drive to the nearest hospital, which was pretty far away, they fell into the muddy terrain. In that moment, when Stan tried to apologize to his daughter, the kid told him that it was okay because he was doing the best he could. This becomes not only a great story anecdote to share with a grieving Cynthia, but it also showcases the brutal reality of Stan and Sammi’s relationship and what exactly went wrong. The father messed up a lot, never on purpose, and always in the process of trying his best. Even so, it ended up hurting his daughter in a number of ways. Fortunately, as Sammi grows up and Stan is alongside her, the two are able to work things out and arrive at a much brighter future.
How Did Warren Die? Did He Finish His Book?
Warren’s death comes; it’s both a surprise and a natural progression of things. In a way, Cynthia has been bracing for this very reality, of a loss of love and partnership, from the start. Although the specifics of the conditions that led to Warren’s death aren’t specified, it’s safe to assume it was due to a medical emergency related to his old age. Fortunately, weeks prior to the tragedy, Cynthia got to experience something which reminded him of her and her husband’s glory days, inadvertently supplying a perfect climactic moment for the couple. When she first hired Pramila, it was mostly for her husband’s medical and personal care needs. However, in an effort to spare Warren the confusion, she had asked the nurse to pretend to be a PhD student who was here to help the author with his latest literary endeavor.
Although Warren’s dementia made it impossible for him to properly write his book about the Watergate scandal, he did spend a lot of time sharing his past with Pramila. He recalled days of his past as an athlete, as a political counsel, and more, regaling one grand story after another. As it turns out, all this time, the nurse decided to record each and every story as an unofficial memoir of his life. Therefore, by the end, Pramila is able to share this manuscript with Cynthia, who gets to relive a highlights reel of her husband’s life. This helps her look past the grief of his inevitable end and focus on the parts of him that made her fall so deeply in love in the first place. In the aftermath of his death, Cynthia goes on to publish this book, “A Bookcase,” as a symbol of Warren’s life and legacy.
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