The Last Word: How do we wish to be remembered?

The Last Word (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for blunt profanity
By Derrick Bang

Once the characters are introduced, and the core premise established, most folks will be able to anticipate all the plot beats coming in Stuart Ross Fink’s script.

Doesn’t matter. The execution is charming, from start to finish.

Small-town newspaper reporter Anne Sherman (Amanda Seyfried, left) is astonished when
take-charge Harriet Lauler (Shirley MacLaine) barges into the publisher's office and
insists on commissioning — and fine-tuning — the obituary that'll run after her death.

Actors lucky enough to achieve milestone birthdays often are rewarded with the opportunity to play eccentric and/or cantankerous oldsters who leave a trail of shell-shocked victims in their wake: a stereotype that rarely fails to entertain. Indeed, such character portraits often result in nominations and awards. (Just for starters: Maggie Smith, The Lady in the Van; Rolf Lassgård, A Man Called Ove; Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Grumpy Old Men; Art Carney, Harry and Tonto.)

Which brings us to tart-tongued, obsessive/compulsive Harriet Lauler: a once successful advertising executive whose world has contracted to the confines of her spacious, beautifully appointed — but empty — house, and who now marks the passage of each grindingly slow day with boredom and frustration. And who is played, with waspish delight, by Shirley MacLaine.

The Last Word — terrific title, by the way — finds Harriet adrift in a lonesome existence of her own making: completely isolated from the family members, former friends and colleagues that she has annoyed, offended, insulted or merely exasperated. Whether this seclusion is deserved, is beside the point; our heartbreaking introduction to Harriet finds her at low ebb, MacLaine wordlessly conveying the woman’s hushed despair during a somber montage accompanied solely by soft notes from Nathan Matthew David’s score.

This is by no means the first film to preface its narrative by mining gentle chuckles from a character’s ill-conceived suicide attempt. Goldie Hawn won an Oscar for doing so, back in 1969’s Cactus Flower; poor Lassgård’s similar efforts kept getting frustrated, in the aforementioned A Man Called Ove. The worst part for Harriet, after hospital treatment, is that she’s embarrassed to have revealed a weakness in her unswerving refinement.

But the act also prompts an epiphany, when she happens to glance at a random obituary in the local newspaper. Suddenly concerned about how she’ll be remembered in a few similarly short paragraphs, after her passing, Harriet impulsively decides to control the situation. She therefore hires the young journalist in question — Anne Sherman (Amanda Seyfried) — to write her obituary. Now, while she’s still alive.

Cedar Rapids: Droll undercurrents

Cedar Rapids (2011) • View trailer for Cedar Rapids
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, crude humor, sexual content and drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.18.11


Mark Twain’s innocents abroad never had it this rough.

Tim Lippe is a small-town guy through and through: an unsullied soul who seems quite content to remain within the sheltering boundaries of tiny Brown Valley, Wis. He sells peace of mind as an agent for locally based BrownStar Insurance, and he’s good at it; people trust his utterly sincere face — which is genuine, not a calculated façade — and acknowledge the wisdom of dealing with somebody who resides no more than a few blocks away.

Although Joan (Anne Heche) insists that Tim (Ed Helms, center right) shouldn't
have any trouble with an indoor climbing competition, our hero is far from
convinced. And once he's 20 feet off the ground, he'll naturally do the opposite
when some helpful soul warns him not to look down...

Tim lives alone in the house where he grew up, and seems content to do so. In the manner of an honest, guileless individual who lacks cynicism and fancies himself a moral clean spirit, he doesn’t miss what he can’t imagine. Whatever the greater world holds, somewhere Out There, he genuinely couldn’t care less. This isn’t a guy who lives vicariously through his Netflix subscription; he probably peruses nothing more progressive than Readers Digest.

But then ... disaster.

When a BrownStar colleague dies suddenly under eyebrow-raising circumstances — the details of which Tim refuses to contemplate — our sheltered adult waif is ordered to take the guy’s place at the industry’s annual ASMI convention in the free-wheeling, hothouse atmosphere of ... wait for it ...

Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Instant panic attack.

Indie director Miguel Arteta’s Cedar Rapids starts slowly, almost somnambulantly, but gradually builds its way into the sort of hilarious, full-out raunchy comedy that the Farrelly brothers wish they could make, but haven’t near the talent — or artistic sensibilities — to pull off. But while Arteta deserves the credit for tone and pacing, and for encouraging precisely modulated performances from his talented ensemble cast, the true hero of the moment is screenwriter Phil Johnston.

You’d never know it from Johnston’s few credits: a couple of shorts and a forgettable made-for-TV sci-fi comedy. But he must’ve been shopping the script for Cedar Rapids around, because he made Variety’s 2009 list of “10 screenwriters to watch,” an accolade he clearly deserves. Cedar Rapids makes excellent use of a successful comedy’s essential ingredients: a simple yet captivating premise, well drawn characters, funny but wholly credible plot hiccups, and — most important — a solid moral center that allows us to root for the protagonist.

Not to mention a pitch-perfect performance from star Ed Helms, cast as poor, beleaguered Tim. The long-time veteran of TV’s The Office got his big screen break with 2009’s The Hangover, and knew just what to do with it. His work here in Cedar Rapids merely illustrates the obvious: Helms knows how to carry a starring role.

And it’s not an easy part. Too much clowning, too much infantile behavior, and Tim would devolve into the sort of man-child caricature that Will Ferrell has turned into such a tiresome cliché. Alternatively, too much aggressive compensation — too large a dose of the inner wild child encouraged to escape during this life-changing ASMI weekend — and Tim would cease to be sympathetic.