LIFE ITSELF

STARRING: Olivia Wilde

Dan Fogelman ( This Is Us) knows how to juxtapose emotional gut-punches with life affirmations, which the writer-director plays with in Life Itself, a multigenerational drama that begins with a New York couple (Oscar Isaac and Wilde) but twists and transforms into something greater. “A lot of things we watch are one thing – they’re funny or sad or serious or light – but life is this weird mixture of all,” says Fogelman. “That’s what the movie tries to capture.” (Out now)

“She really had been dealt a difficult hand in life,” Wilde says of her character, Abby.