| Overall Grade: |
C+ |
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| Story: |
C |
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| Acting: |
B |
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| Direction: |
C+ |
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| Visuals: |
C- |
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A Luminous Pfeiffer Cast Adrift in Weak Comedy
by Ed (movies profile)
Jun 1, 2008
4
of
4 people found this review helpful
Even before the obligatory clip is shown of “The Graduate”, I was thinking how great Michelle Pfeiffer would be as the predatory Mrs. Robinson in a remake. Unfortunately, while the plot takes its cues from the complications of an older woman-younger man affair, there is little else that director/screenwriter Amy Heckerling’s 2007 comedy has in common with Mike Nichols’s seminal 1967 classic except for a mostly winning cast. The whole venture feels very scattered and rather dated in its cultural references (the production was shelved for over two years), and Brian Tufano’s washed-out cinematography, in particular when the lens is on Pfeiffer, is disappointing. On the upside is Pfeiffer herself, who manages to look sensational at 47 despite the technical deficiencies and appears relaxed and assured despite the unimaginative ways Heckerling drives the cliché-driven story.
Set in LA (though filmed primarily in London), the film stars Pfeiffer as Rosie, both a successful TV sitcom producer in a cruelly youth-oriented industry and a recently divorced mother raising her adolescent daughter Izzie through puberty. Similar to the set-up of Jake Kasdan’s “The TV Set”, Rosie uses her daughter as a litmus test for a teen sitcom called “You Go Girl”, which seems like a cross between “Saved by the Bell” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”. In a casting call, she meets the boyishly charming Adam, and sparks inevitably fly despite an age gap of at least fifteen years. Naturally, complications ensue when Adam becomes a breakout star. Moreover, throughout the story, Rosie’s conscience shows up in the scabrous form of Mother Nature who is lightning-quick with her “I-told-you-so” invectives.
There are a variety of supporting characters and subplots to track in this melee, much the same way Heckerling handled the shenanigans in her fondly remembered “Fast Times in Ridgemont High”. One funny conceit that Heckerling exploits is the casting of jaded older actors as the teens in the sitcom, and in that spirit, she recruits Stacey Dash and Paul Rudd, both from 1995’s “Clueless”, to play two of the actors. At forty, Dash looks great and completely convinces as a self-absorbed Lindsay/Britney-wannabe. Showing off the comic chops he displayed with aplomb in Judd Apatow’s mega-comedies, “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up”, Rudd steps up to the plate as Adam and has genuine chemistry with Pfeiffer. As Izzie, Saoirse Ronan (currently winning raves in Joe Wright’s “Atonement”) is terrifically winsome.
Smaller roles are filled in expertly by Jon Lovitz as Rosie’s surgery-obsessed ex-husband, Fred Willard as a nasty network suit, and Sarah Alexander (who played one of Pfeiffer’s witchy sisters in “Stardust”) as an unscrupulous secretary. While I generally like Tracey Ullman a lot, her role as Mother Nature feels so wedged in that I just wish Heckerling could have trusted the material more to avoid such a tired movie ploy. Lastly, the production company apparently did such a poor job brokering the film that it went straight to DVD without a theatrical release, a shame since Pfeiffer, Rudd and Heckerling all deserve better. The extras on the 2008 package are rather spartan with Heckerling and producer Cerise Hallam Larkin providing a genial, ramshackle commentary track. There are also three deleted scenes, as well as the trailer which I assume was never shown in theaters. |
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