Stories weren’t about issues in those days, they were about setting up a scenario you’d never seen before (paying attention, Hollywood?) and keeping you mercilessly hooked by your need to know What Happens Next.

So the pair take flight to find a hometown that feels right, calling on friends and relatives around North America in a series of vignettes that teach them how not to be good parents. Between the goofy, talky soccer mum (Janney) to the extreme Aquarian hippie (Gyllenhaal), the two end up more confused than they started.

It doesn’t feel like a Michael Moore movie, with little of his cult-of-personality showboating. There are several ultimately pointless musical acts and it gets a little repetitive, but the editing manages to generate a sense of slowly building hope which history reminds us wasn’t enough to spare us from Bush’s second term.