4 stars. Rated PG-13, and rather harshly, for brief drug content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.20.16
Marnie Minervini can solve any
problem. Any problem.
And for those foolish enough to insist
they’ve haven’t any problems, Marnie
will help diagnose some previously overlooked “issue,” and then suggest the
best possible course of action. She’s never wrong, and she’s the first person
to admit as much.
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| During a dinner already laden with emotional angst, Marnie (Susan Saranon, left) watches warily after her daughter, Lori (Rose Byrne), sees her ex enter the restaurant with his new girlfriend. |
In fairness, that opinion is
shared by most folks on the receiving end of her largess — medical, spiritual
or financial — who marvel at Marnie’s cheerful altruism, while assuming that
she must be the world’s best, most caring mother.
Except that daughter Lori knows
the truth, as do we: that Marnie is a nosy, relentlessly hovering, knows-no-boundaries
nuisance who, despite her kind-hearted intentions, is a two-legged 24/7
nightmare.
She’s also the genius creation of
actress-turned-writer/director Lorene Scafaria, who has concocted this
character from the heart: from the complicated dynamic that resulted when,
after her father died, her mother sold the family home in New Jersey and moved
3,000 miles to the West Coast, in order to be closer to her daughter.
“And,” Scafaria explains, in her
film’s press notes, “I’ve been raising her in Los Angeles ever since.”
Granted, Scafaria has embellished
a bit, but still: No mother could hope for a better, funnier, more even-handed
portrait of a widow trying to work her way through grief, while blundering amid
the walls freshly erected by a daughter struggling to process her frustration and sense of loss.
Nor could we, as viewers, request
or expect anybody better than Susan Sarandon, when it came to depicting this
character. Sarandon is a revelation, both on camera and while delivering
Marnie’s stream-of-consciousness narration. I’d call the latter a clever means
of illustrating just how exasperated Lori (Rose Byrne) gets, as the victim of
her mother’s constant, intrusive nagging ... but the voice-overs are too
hilarious to be viewed as irritating.
Mind you, it’s more accurate to
call Sarandon’s delivery wincingly funny: As this film progresses, few things
become scarier than watching Marnie plunge into a fresh crowd of strangers,
knowing — with an odd blend of dread and amused anticipation — that she’s about
to target fresh prey.
