Just-enough-intimacy for two people who are really bad at it.
Like this: Single-mom of overmothered beta nerd barely tolerates her teenage son learning masculine frame from her disreputable, curmudgeonly neighbor. The yarn is always a benedy: In Act III, the kid takes leadership of his own life, gets the girl and walks like a man from then on.
The best example I can think of is “Gran Torino” – which is also a just-enough-Jesus movie – but there are a bunch of them out there. Find an aging male lead who photographs well without a shave and you’ve got a third the cast – and all of the funding.
So today I bring you a couple of one-off variations.
First, free with commercials on IMDB, “Did You Hear About the Morgans?”
Note well: This is not a send up. This film is a collection of poor choices glued together with treacle. But it is fun, despite all that, and it measures up as a just-enough-real-estate movie.
What’s wrong? The title is awful – useless as marketing. Sarah Jessica Parker is much too old for the role she plays. And Hugh Grant – who surely comes with his own writers to make his gags consistent and his performances too long – for some reason fails to deliver the patented Hugh Grant huge rant at the end of Act II.
Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen are fun, as is everyone in the film who does not live in New York. In that sense, it’s a just-enough-Wyoming movie, too, but there is no reason to believe that Hugh Grant either mastered or could manage any sort of masculine frame, going forward.
As for the real estate, it comes down to two scenes. In the first, Parker’s character blows a showing so badly that I wanted to send her license back to the state on the spot. But in the second, she deftly guides an underfunded seller into boosting his curb appeal, leading to a sale. Score Team Realtor!
Forgiving it its many bad decisions, it’s a fun reconciliation rom-com. And even without the huge rant, Hugh Grant is always funny.
“Like Sunday, Like Rain,” free on Prime, is heartier fare – meaning it might be harder to digest. It’s a just-enough-mom film about two kids from vastly different worlds united by their awful mothers.
Actor Frank Whaley was the writer and director, and he knocked me out in both capacities. This is a tight little indie: Don’t go in expecting pyrotechnics – or even much of a plot. But it is haunting and hopeful at the same time – with none of the self-indulgence we expect from actors who get their vanity projects funded. Whaley delivers on the true promise of cinema: A complete, coherent, satisfying and uplifting dream.
And to top it off, he takes the just-enough-dad movie back to the Greeks and makes his just-enough-mom movie mutually-reciprocal. That’s my kind of benedy.
