Home Again
Directed by: Hallie Meyers-Shyer
Written by: Hallie Meyers-Shyer
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Pico Alexander, Jon Rudnitsky, Nat Wolff, Michael Sheen, Lola Flanery, Eden Grace Redfield, Lake Bell, Candice Bergen, Reid Scott, Dolly Wells, Josh Stamberg, P.J. Byrne
Comedy/Drama/Romance – 97 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 7 Sep 2017
Written by: Hallie Meyers-Shyer
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Pico Alexander, Jon Rudnitsky, Nat Wolff, Michael Sheen, Lola Flanery, Eden Grace Redfield, Lake Bell, Candice Bergen, Reid Scott, Dolly Wells, Josh Stamberg, P.J. Byrne
Comedy/Drama/Romance – 97 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 7 Sep 2017
Clue number one Home Again aims to align with every other recent rom-com and remain safely in the pack trying not to poke its head above water is the opening voiceover. Reese Witherspoon peppily begins, “I was born…” and so on. I believe Mila Kunis did something very similar in Bad Moms and most other plucky, can-do heroines have done since Doris Day. In fact, Home Again feels like a compilation of already established, popular, and overly familiar rom-coms perhaps because of what looks like one of the more nepotistic directorial choices in cinematic history.
From producer Nancy Meyers, the writer with an Oscar nomination under her belt for Private Benjamin, and a collage of more mundane rom-coms as director and producer form the 1998 Parent Trap remake to more modern fluff like The Intern, Home Again is directed by a lady named Hallie Meyers-Shyer. Hmm…just what could the relationship be here? Ms. Meyers-Shyer also wrote the stale script, which is something, but doesn’t it seem a little 2017 West Wing to hire your kid to shepherd the project?
From producer Nancy Meyers, the writer with an Oscar nomination under her belt for Private Benjamin, and a collage of more mundane rom-coms as director and producer form the 1998 Parent Trap remake to more modern fluff like The Intern, Home Again is directed by a lady named Hallie Meyers-Shyer. Hmm…just what could the relationship be here? Ms. Meyers-Shyer also wrote the stale script, which is something, but doesn’t it seem a little 2017 West Wing to hire your kid to shepherd the project?
Perhaps the elder Meyers knew it would be mostly fill in the blank and connect the dots since Home Again doesn’t go anywhere near breaking new ground. Three twenty-something millennials move into a 40-year old mom’s guest house and establish themselves as integral parts of an ad hoc family. That’s a chronologically-shifted Three Men and a Baby. In the more dramatic feelings department, the story leans on a What Women Want theme of guys just act; women think. Each of the three gentlemen that could believes he knows what is best for Alice (Witherspoon, Inherent Vice), and at one key moment, Alice’s estranged husband (Michael Sheen, Passengers) declares, “Alice doesn’t know what she wants!”
Home Again is at its least frustrating when the three guys are interacting with Alice and her two precocious daughters. George (Jon Rudnitsky, Saturday Night Live) is the writer and strikes a rapport with the pre-teen older daughter. Teddy (Nat Wolff, Leap!) is the actor who plays the comic relief and the non-threatening suitor role as he is the one guy not interested in Alice sexually. Harry (Pico Alexander, A Most Violent Year) is the director, the smooth talker, and Home Again’s most glaring problem. First off, Alexander’s acting chops are not quite up to par with his on screen peers, specifically note this when he is supposed to get angry. Second, and detrimental to the pacing and momentum, Harry and Alice’s choppy and uncomfortable relationship sails like a basket of rocks.
But the Meyers ladies have a few tricks up their sleeves. Don’t think about how borderline lousy and threadbare the movie is; Look, here is Candice Bergen as Alice’s mom! They were in Sweet Home Alabama together, remember? And the title, Home Again. Doesn’t that also remind you of Sweet Home Alabama too; a familiar film where Reese Witherspoon also functioned in a return home scenario? After awhile, poking holes in Home Again becomes just as tiresome as the film so here’s a positive. The set up with the three guys moving into the house works. I enjoyed how they integrate themselves into the household. Upon reflection, the scenario might seem a tad anti-feminist where three strange guys are able to ‘fix’ Alice and help her figure her life out. The guys make up equal thirds of a character pie that when you put them together, they just about make up one whole guy’s character and personality.
10 years ago, the Entourage bros would have played these guys. Kevin Connolly is a lock for George while Adrien Grenier would barely have to memorize the script to play Teddy. But beware the montages. Apparently, Hallie Meyers-Shyer never met a talking and laughing dinner montage she didn’t like, with a piano plinking in the background. After the way too obvious third or fourth one of these, this sin is almost completely erased by perhaps the most ridiculous rom-com climax yet filmed. I have to get backstage!…but I just can’t get back there and oh look at the quick meet cute! Please, rom-com lovers and those shaking their heads thinking I am being too rough here; I beg you to try and defend that scene. Maybe you can deliver it while sipping wine, leaning back on an overstuffed pillow, over a montage.
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