What They Had

The bonds between mother and daughter trasncend the years.

(2018) Drama (Bleecker Street) Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Robert Forster, Blythe Danner, Taissa Farmiga, Josh Lucas, Sarah Sutherland, Marilyn Dodds Frank, Aimee Garcia, William Smillie, Isabeau Dornevil, Jennifer Robideau, Jay Montepare, An Whitney, Eric Ian, Matthias Kocur, Ruben Ramirez, Annie McKinnie, Darren Sheehan, Ryan W. Garcia, Ann Kabis. Directed by Elizabeth Chomko

 

Growing old sucks. If you don’t believe me, just check out every Hollywood movie ever made about dementia. Better still, talk to someone who has parents or grandparents actually going through it. It’s not as cute as it looks in the movies.

Ruth (Danner) gets out of bed early one morning, leaves her Chicago apartment in the midst of a snowstorm wearing only her nightgown and an overcoat and boards a train When her husband Burt (Forster) discovers she’s not there and can’t find her anywhere, he calls his son Nicky (Shannon) frantically. Nicky in turn calls his sister Bridget (Swank) a.k.a. “Bitty” against the express wishes of his father. Bridget arrives from California with her newly expelled from college daughter Emma (Farmiga) in tow, only to find that her mother has been found.

Nicky is all for putting Ruth in a memory-assistance home which Bridget tacitly agrees with, but Burt is having none of it and Bridget won’t stand up to her dad, who bullied her into marrying a husband (Lucas) that she didn’t love. Nicky, who owns a bar, stands up to his dad but with little effect; the power of attorney over his mom was granted to Bridget, which still rankles Nicky.

As Ruth’s stage six dementia progresses, the kids squabble and Burt pontificates. Bridget initiates an affair with a local contractor (Smillie). Soon it becomes obvious that Ruth is getting worse. Can the siblings convince their dad to see reason before something truly awful happens?

This kind of movie has been done in both movies and on television many, many times before. In terms of content, ain’t nothing to see here that won’t be familiar to those who watch movies that aren’t about spaceships and superheroes occasionally. The tropes that first time writer-director Elizabeth Chomko utilizes are going to be familiar to anyone who’s see any movie involving Alzheimer’s. She also doesn’t give her characters a whole lot of depth.

Given that, the reason to see the movie is the cast and it is a good one. Me, I lurve me some Robert Forster and will essentially see any movie that he’s in for no other reason other than because he is in it. Swank and Shannon are two of the best actors in Hollywood today and with Swank seen much less often onscreen these days, it is a treat to see her work just as it is a treat to see Shannon do his thing. Danner is given a pretty thankless role but she pulls it off with some dignity, despite there being essentially a caricature of dementia patients involved. We don’t see the messy side of it; the screaming, the tears, the recriminations. In that sense the movie is a bit bloodless.

Still, great acting can cover a lot of sins and that’s what happens here. Not an essential movie but certainly one to watch if you need something to watch and you’re tired of shut-off-your-brain Hollywood fare.

REASONS TO SEE: Superior cast.
REASONS TO AVOID: This is nothing you haven’t seen before.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity and a brief sexual reference.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Chomko’s grandparents – upon whom the couple of Bert and Ruth are based – appear in a photograph in their home.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Kanopy, Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/19/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews: Metacritic: 69/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Savages
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Underneath the Same Moon

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Peep World

Sarah Silverman puts up her dukes.

(2010) Comedy (IFC) Michael C. Hall, Sarah Silverman, Rainn Wilson, Judy Greer, Taraji P. Henson, Ron Rifkin, Leslie Warren, Alicia Witt, Lewis Black (narrator), Stephen Tobolowski, Nicholas Hormann, Kate Mara, Ben Schwartz, Octavia Spencer, Geoffrey Arend. Directed by Barry Blaustein

 

Families are our bedrock but they can also drive us crazy. Sometimes we love ’em to death but other times they can make us so mad we can’t see straight. You love your family more than anyone but the flipside is that you can hate your family more than anyone too.

The Meyerwitz family is gathering at a swanky L.A. restaurant to celebrate the 70th birthday of patriarch Henry (Rifkin). The family, dysfunctional and argumentative at the best of times, is living under a veil of tension more than usual. That’s because Nathan (Schwartz), the baby of the family, has written a best-selling novel that is a thinly veiled account of his family, with all their dirty secrets intact and there for the world to see.

Daughter Cheri (Silverman), a failed actress is actually suing her brother. Eldest brother Jack (Hall), who before Nathan’s success was the most successful Meyerwitz, is seeing his architecture business crumble and to relieve the stress, regularly goes to peep shows to take out his frustrations. His wife Laura (Greer) is pregnant to compound matters.

Joel (Wilson), the ne’er-do-well of the family, is on the run from loan sharks and is desperately trying to guilt money out of his brother Jack who doesn’t have the money to give any longer. He tries to keep the knowledge of the unsavory things he’s done from his girlfriend Mary (Henson) who only sees the good in him.

And Nathan himself isn’t without his own demons. Condescending and cruel to those around him, he takes an erectile dysfunction pill while getting ready for a date and winds up with a monster boner that won’t quit. And even Henry has a few secrets of his own – and you can bet they’re all going to come out at this dinner from hell.

The movie has a terrific ensemble cast, led by Hall who is in my opinion one of those actors who always elevates the material he has. I’ve never been a huge fan of Silverman but she turns in what might just be her best performance yet as the neurotic Cheri. This is a bit of a stretch for the usually caustic Silverman (and there are elements of her usual persona here albeit much toned down) and she nails it nicely.

Wilson is kind of the comic foil here but while he’s usually pretty good this is not one of his better performances. Greer however is golden here – she has become one of my favorite comic actresses in just the last couple of years. She and Henson make up the heart of the movie.

The issue here is that most of the characters are pretty one-dimensional and cliché. The actors cope to varying degrees but it becomes noticeable often. The story isn’t that much better – there are no real surprises and nothing that you haven’t seen before and done better. Even Lewis Black’s narration is by the numbers and a waste of this inventive comedian’s talent.

This is a movie that wasted its potential. The premise is a sound one albeit one that has been done before (the dysfunctional family gathering) and the cast is superb. With better writing this could have been an indie classic. Still, the talent holds it up just enough to make it worth seeing.

WHY RENT THIS: A nice ensemble cast who try real hard. Some funny moments.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: One-dimensional characters.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a whole lot of bad language and a fair amount of sexual themes.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The hand with the different color painted nails in the salon that Jack enters is the same hand of the “Ice Cream Killer” that is on the trophy shelf of “Dexter,” the Showtime series that Hall also stars in.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $14,351 on an unreported production budget; this was a big box office flop.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Royal Tenenbaums

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: Hotel Transylvania