Enjoyable movie, with a strong central performance by Susan Sarandon, and dependable support from Rose Byrne and J.K. Simmons.
Writer-director Lorene Scafaria tells her story skilfully, wittily and warmly. Ms Sarandon plays Marnie, a New Yorker who, following the death of her husband, relocates to L.A. to be near her screenwriter daughter Lori, played by Ms Byrne. The film is really about the two women working through their grief, but the telling of their tale is done with deftly, lightly: it isn't a heavy film. The overall tone is one of optimism, but without anything mawkish or Pollyanna-ish.
When Lori heads back to NYC to work on a TV project, Marnie knows she has to look for ways to fill her time. She volunteers as a baby-sitter to a friend of Lori's, which leads her to becoming a wedding-planner; she volunteers at a hospital, which culminates in a most unexpectedly moving scene; she stumbles into a location shoot for a movie, becomes a walk-on, and thereby finds a friend in a retired policeman played by Mr Simmons; and she befriends a young guy who helps her come to grips with her iPad (product placement, I suspect) she ends up helping him in return.
If you think there are too many story lines, you're right. This is the film's only weakness, to my mind. In particular , the iPad guy story line is redundant: it has no pay-off and, in spite of a charming performance by Jerrod Carmichael, could easily be cut from the movie, making it a lean 90 minutes instead of the slightly flabby 100 that it is.
All in all, it's a well-crafted, gently amusing piece of work.
Writer-director Lorene Scafaria tells her story skilfully, wittily and warmly. Ms Sarandon plays Marnie, a New Yorker who, following the death of her husband, relocates to L.A. to be near her screenwriter daughter Lori, played by Ms Byrne. The film is really about the two women working through their grief, but the telling of their tale is done with deftly, lightly: it isn't a heavy film. The overall tone is one of optimism, but without anything mawkish or Pollyanna-ish.
When Lori heads back to NYC to work on a TV project, Marnie knows she has to look for ways to fill her time. She volunteers as a baby-sitter to a friend of Lori's, which leads her to becoming a wedding-planner; she volunteers at a hospital, which culminates in a most unexpectedly moving scene; she stumbles into a location shoot for a movie, becomes a walk-on, and thereby finds a friend in a retired policeman played by Mr Simmons; and she befriends a young guy who helps her come to grips with her iPad (product placement, I suspect) she ends up helping him in return.
If you think there are too many story lines, you're right. This is the film's only weakness, to my mind. In particular , the iPad guy story line is redundant: it has no pay-off and, in spite of a charming performance by Jerrod Carmichael, could easily be cut from the movie, making it a lean 90 minutes instead of the slightly flabby 100 that it is.
All in all, it's a well-crafted, gently amusing piece of work.