On the Rocks: Piquant, with a twist

On the Rocks (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.20.20

Folks love to speculate about what Bill Murray’s character whispered to Scarlett Johansson’s neglected young wife, at the end of writer/director Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.

 

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Or, digging even deeper, whether the two of them might have been able to establish some sort of long-term relationship, perhaps on a father/daughter level.

 

Coppola gives us an answer, of sorts, in On the Rocks, an Apple TV+ exclusive.

 

This time, Murray’s Felix is father to Rashida Jones’ Laura, although we don’t meet him right away. Coppola spends a lengthy prologue depicting Laura’s routine: devoted wife to husband Dean (Marlon Wayans); full-time mother to young daughters Maya and Theo; a practical, down-to-earth approach to things.

 

It’s easy to mock certain aspects of the New York City lifestyle, and Coppola occasionally succumbs: notably when Laura bundles Theo into a stroller each morning, and then walks Maya to a tony private school, where they join a queue of similarly posh parents waiting for the teacher to show up. (Laura wears Vans sneakers while carrying a Chanel bag.)

 

In a running gag that gets funnier with each fresh exposure, Jenny Slate is a hoot as Vanessa, a self-absorbed chatterbox waiting in the same line; she discusses her personal life in hilariously tedious detail, oblivious to the fact that Laura isn’t paying attention.

 

But this is mere background gloss. Coppola’s focus is more relationship-oriented, as was the case with Lost in Translation. Dean has been working longer hours of late, trying to get a start-up business off the ground; he’s therefore not around as much, to handle his share of home chores. Laura is tired — indeed, Jones often looks wan and exhausted — and feels taken for granted. Disconnected.

 

She’s an author — who made the mistake of selling a book she hasn’t even started — and is crippled by a severe case of writer’s block. No surprise, since she spends so much time picking up actual blocks, toys and clothes that the girls abandon throughout their apartment.

 

Coppola is astutely gifted at recognizing the little gestures, comments and expressions that characterize a given thought, moment or desire; Jones deftly conveys this wealth of nuance.