There are couple of ways a film adaptation of this story could go. It could be a broad comedy in the vein of Big (1988) about a man living every child’s dream – being locked in a toy store all night – or it could be the sad tale of a career criminal living in cramped isolation, cut off from his family and subsiding on M&Ms and baby food, while the net of justice closes in. In the hands of Roofman director Derek Cianfrance, we get a mixture of both approaches. The turn towards comedy is a surprising change of pace for Cianfrance, following the occasionally heavy-handed romantic dramas Blue Valentine (2010), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) and The Light Between Oceans (2016), but he directs with a disarming lightness of touch here.
