Alex “Bean” Rose has a “life list.” A list she made at 13 of things she wants to accomplish in life. It includes things like learning to play the piano, learning to drive, reading Moby Dick, getting a tattoo, performing a stand-up routine, getting along better with her father, and falling in love.

In Netflix’s The Life List, Alex must fulfill the items on her life list in order to receive her inheritance. Her mother Elizabeth believes Alex is “floundering” and given up her passions for a “cozy job.” Something happened that hurt Alex so deeply that she quit the life she imagined and now works as an account executive at her mother’s cosmetic company. It’s never stated outright but examining the pieces of dialogue we are given, it’s not far-fetched to assume that Alex was a teacher who dated her principal and was subsequently betrayed by that principal, causing her to give up her ambitions in the classroom.

Alex and Elizabeth are close. That’s made clear from the very beginning of the movie when they’re shown lying in bed together casually chatting about their lives. It’s during this chat that Elizabeth gently shares her thoughts on Alex’s current life choices. She also shares that her cancer has returned. Despite Alex’s protests, Elizabeth has decided not to fight it this time.

Alex is confident that her mother has named her CEO of Rose Cosmetics in her will. She’s thrown into a tizzy when it’s revealed at Elizabeth’s will reading that this isn’t the case. Instead, Elizabeth tasks Alex with fulfilling her childhood “life list.” With each completed task, Elizabeth’s young estate lawyer, Brad will provide her with another disc in a series of DVDs that her mother recorded just before her death. As further demonstration of their closeness, Alex and Elizabeth’s recording “interact” as if the latter were still alive and capable of reacting.

The Life List is an enjoyable rom-com that skillfully digs deep enough into Alex’s life to get us to root for her, but not so deep that we get mired in her psyche. The Life List is not high drama but a guarantee that Alex’s situation works itself out with heartening, somewhat inspiring and comedic results. It’s a respite for an exhaustive day.

However, this doesn’t mean that The Life List doesn’t introduce some thought-provoking ideas. Whole drama series and movies have been devoted to the disconnect between what parents want for their children and what their children want for themselves. Was Elizabeth right to force Alex into fulfilling her childhood “life list” instead of celebrating the woman Alex is becoming? Are you the person your parents wanted you to be?

What is your relationship with your parents like? Are you equally as close (or distant) to the adults who raised you? A better relationship with Samuel, her father is on Alex’s life list. Her first attempt ends in unexpected drama. He walks out during dinner after revealing Elizabeth cheated and Alex is not his biological daughter. While I accept this revelation is needed to enable her to find “love” on the road trip she takes with Brad to meet her biological father, I can’t help feeling there are other possibly equally effective ways to get them together.

In Nothing in Common, a 1986 movie starring Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason, a successful ad executive is forced to confront his estrangement from his father. His mother divorces his father and shortly after his father is diagnosed with a severe case of diabetes. In a particularly heated confrontation between father and son, the father frustratingly exclaims (something to the effect of), “I didn’t understand you! You were always having funerals for your goldfish!”

From what I remember, the mother in Nothing in Common did not have an affair and there is no revelation that the ad executive isn’t his father’s biological son. It’s just that mother and son had “more in common.” Whether it’s nature or nurture, I think we all have that parent that we feel “closer” to. It’s not a matter of “liking more.” It’s just that you’re on the same “wavelength.” It’s easier for you to talk to the “one” parent over the “other.”

Samuel is straightlaced and pragmatic where Elizabeth is ambitious with a willingness to pursue the improbable. Right or wrong, for better or worse, she wants these traits for Alex too. Which brings us back to the question, “Are you the person your parents wanted you to be?” with the addition of, “Which one?”