Review

The Meddler

Marnie (Susan Sarandon) comforts her occasionally semi-estranged daughter Lori (Rose Byrne) in The Meddler.
Marnie (Susan Sarandon) comforts her occasionally semi-estranged daughter Lori (Rose Byrne) in The Meddler.

Here we have an attractively aging woman, recently widowed and well off, who is determined to be happy. To that end, she spends her time interfering in others' lives, presumably to try to make them happy too, but mostly to bring meaning to her existence.

The stuff of comedy? Could be. But as game as Susan Sarandon is in trying to pull off awkward dialogue, cliched characters and ridiculous situations, writer-director Lorene Scafaria's semi-autobiographical The Meddler falls short. At its best, it's handsome and occasionally entertaining; at its worst, it's painful to watch, and not in a poignant, life-lesson, human relationship sort of way.

The Meddler

80 Cast: Susan Sarandon, Rose Byrne, J.K. Simmons, Michael McKean, Jason Ritter

Director: Lorene Scafaria

Rating: PG-13, for brief drug content

Running time: 100 minutes

The trouble (for Sarandon's character Marni Minvervini, as well as for the film) is the relationship between her and daughter Lori (Rose Byrne), a rather tiresome screenwriter with an up-and-down career (and equally uneven love life) in Los Angeles. When she loses her husband, Marni leaves Brooklyn and sets up a residence in an airy apartment near LA's idyllic Grove outdoor mall. Life is perfect, she insists, especially through countless calls and visits to her dour daughter, who lives nearby with a couple of good-natured dogs. And part of that perfect life, as far as Marni is concerned, is instructing Lori on how to handle just about everything.

Lori passive-aggressively pushes back against Susan's micromanaging, but Susan is appallingly tone-deaf to her daughter. Resistance from Lori gets tougher and borders on hurtful, forcing the situation to escalate beyond the cleverly acerbic exchanges that mark its introduction.

So ever-upbeat Marni branches out, taking on the care of a young Genius at the Grove's Apple Store whose sweet empathy and customer-service skills help her sort out her new iPhone. Then there's Marni's curious (and expensive) compulsion to finance an elaborate wedding for a lesbian couple, acquaintances of Lori whom Marni hardly knows. And, in order to make good on a pledge to become a volunteer, she starts poking around the back hallways of a hospital, wandering in and out of patients' rooms with a tube of soothing skin lotion and nonstop blather.

What works best in The Meddler: the use of the lovely Grove as a recurring setting, a home base for Marni to regroup when the going gets rough. It's where she meets an appealing law-enforcement Harley-Davidson rider named Zipper, played by J.K. Simmons (channeling the sexy charm and deep voice of Sam Elliott). There's a brief appearance by Blues Traveler as the band at the lesbian wedding. And some of Marni's earnest efforts on her frowny-faced daughter's behalf are touching.

Then there's the dreadful dialogue, the absurd over-reactions to ordinary situations (see the encounter between Marni and would-be suitor Michael McKean following the wedding), a dissonant dinner with her late husband's New Jersey family, and plot points that announce themselves as being important, then disappear without a trace (what happened to that red Lexus?). The result for viewers is a feeling of frustration, of watching a film that gets close to being a winner, but ultimately can't make the grade.

There are those of us who yearn for intelligent films that offer insightful commentary on underserved genres -- in this case, relationships between women. Too often our desires are thwarted by mainstream movies masquerading as unique investigations of overlooked subjects. There's nothing here to keep the conversation going. That's the reason The Meddler, despite its promise, doesn't deliver.

MovieStyle on 05/20/2016

Upcoming Events