WHAT THEY HAD
A heartfelt Catholic family drama with adult-only content.
Should You Watch It?
WHAT THEY HAD earns its four-star rating through its emotional honesty. It portrays a loving Catholic family facing the painful question of how best to care for a mother with Alzheimer’s. The family argues, laughs, regrets, sacrifices, attends Mass, and prays together. Its conflicts feel truthful because they grow from love rather than indifference.
That warmth comes with a serious cost. The film contains a high number of gratuitous obscenities and strong profanities, along with disrespect, dysfunction, and light sexual immorality. Those concerns make it unsuitable for children and young teens, even though the family relationships may speak deeply to adults caring for loved ones.
If you are an adult who can engage the film’s content with discernment, WHAT THEY HAD is worth seeing; families with children or young teens should choose something else.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESOn a cold December night, Bridget receives a distress call from her brother, Nick. Their mother, who has Alzheimer’s, has wandered alone through Chicago and is found in a hospital.
Bridget returns home with her daughter to help her family decide what should happen next. Her father believes he can care for his wife because of the love they share. Nick believes assisted living would be safer. As power of attorney, Bridget must help make the family’s difficult decision.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means WHAT THEY HAD is an exceptionally strong family drama, even with a few clichés. The film is filled with heart and laughter, and its depiction of family dysfunction feels very truthful. It presents real problems, difficult decisions, regrets, and feelings of inadequacy without losing sight of the family’s love.
The characters are especially effective because there is someone with whom many viewers can identify or sympathize. The result is a moving drama with both laughter and a few tears.
The Worldview
WHAT THEY HAD presents a strong Christian and moral worldview through a dysfunctional but loving Catholic family. Family members are called to set aside their own desires and make sacrifices for one another, sometimes begrudgingly. The family attends Mass, prays before dinner, and gathers during Christmas. Its central moral question is how to do what is best for someone who can no longer fully care for herself.
The film also shows the strain of caregiving, marriage troubles, family arguments, and regret. Its moral vision is not entirely consistent: the source describes it as sometimes antinomian, and the story includes some mild moral relativism. Still, the family’s willingness to remain together through conflict gives the film a strong moral center.
The film’s Catholic family is not idealized. Family members bicker, disrespect one another, and struggle with inadequacy. Yet they gradually recognize that their arguments often grow from how much they love each other. That picture of sacrificial care aligns with Scripture’s call to bear one another’s burdens: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements
Strong Christian and moral, but sometimes antinomian, worldview about a Catholic family struggling with and arguing about a decision about what’s the right thing to do for their mother who has a severe case of Alzheimer’s, with family members facing a decision to set aside their own desires to do what’s best for someone else, family members make sacrifices for one another (sometimes begrudgingly), family attends Catholic mass and prays before dinner, and scenes are set during Christmas, but there’s a lot of strong foul language
Foul Language
At least 52 obscenities (including more than 10 “f” words) and 25 profanities (12 GDs and several involving a references to Christ), and woman with Alzheimer’s makes an obscene gesture to another church member during a service
Violence
Nurse tests for a sexual assault
Sex
Married woman dissatisfied with her marriage kisses another man, but they are interrupted when she tries to seduce him lightly, adult man says his Alzheimer’s affected mother hit on him, a comment about self-abuse, and when a mother and daughter take a shower, the daughter tells her mom to wash her “hoo-hoo”
Nudity
Husband and wife lie in bed together, and the husband is not wearing a shirt, and a mother and daughter are in the shower together as the daughter helps her mom wash her hair, but only shoulders and above are shown
Alcohol Use
Characters have a drink occasionally throughout the movie, one character owns a bar, and his sister and father come in for a drink, college girl was kicked out of her dorm for drinking, and a husband tells his wife that she got drunk on Christmas, but no shown drunkenness
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse
Cigarette smoking but no drugs;
Miscellaneous Immorality
Moderate amount of miscellaneous content including a high amount of family dysfunction, a daughter is extremely disrespectful to her mother, a father and son constantly bicker, siblings fight with each other, man is very disrespectful to older woman and tells her to go sit on her rose bushes, niece is very disrespectful to her uncle and calls him derogatory names, bad role models, man struggles with taking his relationship with his longtime girlfriend to the next level, and some mild moral relativism.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Bridget’s family must decide what care is best for her mother. How can love include both compassion and difficult truth?
Galatians 6:2 · Philippians 2:4The family argues even though its members love one another. How can your family disagree without losing patience, honor, or kindness?
Ephesians 4:2–3 · Colossians 3:12–14The characters make sacrifices for one another, sometimes reluctantly. What makes a sacrifice loving rather than merely resentful?
1 Corinthians 13:4–7 · Romans 12:1The family attends Mass and prays before dinner. How can shared prayer shape a family during a painful decision?
Philippians 4:6–7 · James 1:5The Final Word
WHAT THEY HAD offers adults a moving, funny, and morally serious portrait of family love under pressure. Its strong language and other objectionable content make it unsuitable for children and young teens. For discerning adults, our answer is WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY. For a family-friendly alternative, see.
