St. Vincent

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Theodore Melfi/Starring: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher, Terrence Howard and Chris O'Dowd

First time director Theodore Melfi's St. Vincent, which he also scripted, introduces a motley assemblage of potentially amusing characters, then quickly consigns them to situations and behaviors as readily packaged and ready to serve as vending machine candy bars. One could chart the story knowing only the characters, who are more archetypes than people: the crusty old slob who drinks and gambles too much and is hostile to his neighbors but has a heart of gold; the single, working mother who has just moved in next door and has a son who is bullied at school; the street-wise, struggling prostitute who services the old slob but has a heart of gold; and an underworld figure who is after said slob for a gambling debt but doesn't have a heart of the shiny, precious metal. The only character who doesn't come in a box happens to be the one we seldom see; a Catholic school brother/elementary school teacher with a mildly sarcastic sense of humor whose class is made up of Jews and agnostics, who are welcomed warmly. Can you already see where this story will go?

Bill Murray plays Vincent, a Vietnam veteran who spends his days at the track and on a bar-stool. His shabby life is interrupted one day by a single mother named Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) and her son Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), who move in next door. The movers Maggie has hired accidentally knock a branch from Vincent's tree down onto the hood of his car. Vincent angrily demands compensation from Maggie, who is miffed at her neighbor's un-neighborliness.

As Maggie's hospital job leaves her son in a latch-key state, Vincent reluctantly allows Oliver to stay at his house after school but only for an agreed-upon wage he negotiates with Maggie. The moment Vincent and Oliver meet, we already know where the relationship will lead. We know Vincent will help Oliver with the bullying he faces at school and that irresponsible visits to the track and the bar will follow soon after. We also know that the symbolic father/son relationship will be beneficial for both as Vincent's parental instincts are roused and Oliver learns to stand up for himself.

The other story developments are as predictable. We know what will become of the Russian prostitute Daka; played by Naomi Watts, whose accent is as broad as the Mississippi River. It's almost a narrative imperative that Vincent will eventually help her and become a kind of surrogate husband.

The one character I had hoped to see more of was Chris O'Dowd's Brother Geraghty. He is fairly amusing the few times we see him and something funny always seems to spill out of his mouth. Terrence Howard plays Zucko, the man who threatens Vincent for welching on gambling debts. I can't imagine his role was imagined any further than his name. His character lacks humor, personality and even the requisite menace his line of work demands. He is barely there and I wondered if the best parts of the character ended up under a table in the editing room. Watts' accent grates after awhile and generates little humor.

Some scenes were genuinely funny and the film never strays far from its comedic tone. But it lacked the anarchic energy the preview promised. When we learn Vincent has a dementia-afflicted wife in a nursing home, what little edginess the film still has drips into a pool of sentimentality. It isn't enough that he helps Oliver's self-esteem or becomes his surrogate father or that he takes on Daka's problems too; he must be the saint the title demands he be. It doesn't exactly pain me to admit it, but saints are often a drag.

In the end, Vincent, Maggie, Daka, and Oliver come together to become a family of sorts. No surprise there.

If the film had been funny throughout, its sagging characterizations and story might have been made irrelevant. Comedic talents like Murray, McCarthy and O'Dowd can't quite distract us from the film's flaws. Maybe if Vincent had been more sinner than saint, the film might have established and maintained a comic edge.

I noticed the film was only playing in one theater in the area. Maybe industry barons Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the producers of St. Vincent, knew something about their own film that we unsuspecting ticket-buyers don't. Bob and Harvey, you should have trusted your instincts; you should have sent the flick straight to DVD. I know I would have conferred sainthood on you if you had.

Lullaby

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Andrew Levitas/Starring: Richard Jenkins, Garrett Hedlund, Amy Adams, Anne Archer, Jessica Brown Findlay, Jennifer Hudson, Terrence Howard and Jessica Barden

With a cast like that of Lullaby, one might think director Andrew Levitas would have little trouble dramatizing a dying man's last day but somehow an awe-inspiring assemblage of talent can't save what is essentially a dull, tedious, slog.

Richard Jenkins plays Robert Lowenstein, a one-time, cunning business executive who is now literally on his deathbed. He has lost his resolve to fight his illness and is eager to remove the machines and tubes to which he is connected, thus bringing his life to a tragic end. While his wife Rachel (Anne Archer) tends to him, she also defies his efforts to end his life. So far, so fine. Enter his son Jonathan (Garrett Hedlund); a broody, James Dean-like musician who has returned, albeit reluctantly, to see his father and mend the discord between them these past 12 years. Garrett Hedlund is a charismatic actor who has yet to find his breaththrough role. One might remember him from Inside Llewyn Davis as the mysterious, taciturn companion of John Goodman. Here he is the figure around whom other characters and actions seem to revolve, which is strange; given the fact that it is his father who is dying. Not long after Jonathan arrives, his lawyer-sister, petulantly played by Jessica Brown Findlay, shows up to announce she has initiated an injunction to stop her father from ending his life, which is to take place the next day. Jonathan is outraged and angry as the brother/sister animosity surfaces, thus providing the film another conflict.

It is here where the family dynamics are laid bare: Jonathan angry with his father for past offenses, Jonathan angry with sister for vague reasons (though being absent from his father's side for many years is a major component), daughter angrily rejecting her father's wish to die and the mother also fighting her husband's right to die and...anything else? Thankfully no, though Garrett does meet a 17 year-old girl named Meredith (Jessica Barden)--a terminally ill, bone cancer patient-- in the hospital stairwell while enjoying a family-stress smoke. It is an immediate tip-off from their meeting the two will form some sort of bond during this crisis and become friends. Glaring plot contrivance, anyone?

Joining this circus-like melodrama is Jonathan's old flame Emily, inexplicably played by Amy Adams, whose extraordinary talent can often defibrillate the most insipid movies with her presence and charm. I'm not sure what she saw in such a cardboard cut-out of a role but she is mostly around to remind us how Jonathan not only alienated his family in his past but lovers too. How anyone could waste Adams' talent so badly is mystifying. The same can be said for Terrance Howard and Jennifer Hudson--the doctor and nurse duo tending to Robert--whose characters are so marginal in the story one might think they were movie-catering staffers who happened to step in front of the camera. That's three Oscar-nominated actors relegated to dull, peripheral roles while the principal actors are left to play out unconvincing characters unconvincingly. Anne Archer wears a pained expression throughout, but if it's supposed to be grief, it comes off more as acute dyspepsia.

Hedlund's Jonathan is the young, smoking, existential anti-hero that comes in convenience store script six-packs. We know that sooner or later he will reconcile with his old flame (though not rekindle), dance with the terminally ill Meredith at a makeshift hospital room prom and the family will all gather on the father's bed (Doctor too!), for what must be the greatest orgy of tears in cinema this century.

The film concludes with Jonathan performing a song inspired by his father before a substantial theater gathering, while Emily smiles and sings along in the wings. Everything turns out alright; all the strife is washed away, Jonathan and Meredith blow kisses to one another as a final goodbye and life is beautiful again.

I hope the man sitting next to me didn't interpret my heaving chest as uncontrollable sobbing. If he had looked closer, he might have seen me suppressing seismic laughter. If only the film had been a comedy.