It's hard not to like movies by Lorene Scafaria because she puts
so much of herself into them. Nick& Norah's Infinite Playlist centered
on one amazing night in the lives of high schoolers; the vastly underrated Seeking a Friend for the End of the World had Steve Carell
and Keira Knightley dealing with the apocalypse and the on-set of middle age
(oxymoron?), and now there's the utterly charming The Meddler, which advances
into the issues of the older generation. While the title may sound like some
D-list Marvel superhero, the only villains being defeated in this film are
grief and loneliness, slain at the hands of Scafaria's witty script and some
perfect comic chemistry between Rose Byrne and Susan Sarandon.
At 68-years-old, Sarandon is just as
lively and funny as ever, bringing to life a role that could have been
one-dimensional in the wrong hands. She plays the recently-widowed Marnie, who
decides to deal with her grief by packing up her stuff and hightailing it out
of New Jersey to Los Angeles near her filmmaker daughter, Lori (Rose Byrne). If
Marnie is in mourning you'd never know it; she's too much of an Energizer Bunny
for that. She's always off doing something, emboldened by her brand new iPhone,
whether it's attending weddings for Lori's gay friends (one played by Cecily
Strong), volunteering at the hospital, or hanging out at the Apple Store.
Mostly, though, she's up in Lori's business. She's always around, delivering
bagels (always salt), texting, calling, and offering pearls of wisdom that Lori
is not up to hearing. Lori has her own problems coping with her break-up
from a superstar actor (Jason Ritter), and it doesn't help that Marnie keeps
talking about him.
But Marnie isn't a pest, or at least she
isn't an irritant in the way these characters usually come off. We recognize
that Lori needs her space, but we also see why Marnie is who she is. People
deal with grief in different ways, and one way of doing so is to fill that
empty space with the love of others. Or in Marnie's case, by helping make other
lives better. So she's incredibly generous with her wealth (a minor point that
she got a huge insurance payment) in order to do as much good as possible in an
attempt to move on. It's a simple message, told by Scafaria in a delightful,
well-structured manner that emphasizes what she's trying to say and nothing
more, because this film very easily could have been something else.
Far too many of these "self-discover
movies" come up with some contrived circumstance to go on a literal
journey of discovery. Usually it's a road trip of some kind because it's easy
to understand going from point A to point B. Scafaria is content to let her
characters breathe and deal with their various issues in way that is natural
and, as it turns out, funny in the way that real life often is. That approach
also works when dealing with Marnie's love interest, Zipper (J.K. Simmons doing
his best Sam Elliot impression), a retired cop who rides a Harley and has
chickens that love Dolly Parton. Granted, he's the quirkiest, most unbelievable
character of all, but this doesn't become a movie about him and Marnie's
relationship. The central connection always stays between Marnie and Lori; even
when they are separated for stretches of time that never goes away.
All that said; one wishes we could have
seen more of Marnie's world and the friendships she forms. We don't see nearly
enough of Strong or Lucy Punch in supporting roles, and there's a wealth of
potential in the scenes we get of Sarandon with comedian Jarrod Carmichael, who
plays Marnie's favorite Apple Store Genius. The Meddler is good-hearted and well-intentioned, and
unlike Marnie, it gets its message across without having to nag us. If there's a film to take mom to for Mother's Day, this is the one.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
