Chris Knipp
05-29-2015, 10:09 PM
Brett Haley: I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS (2015)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/blyd.jpg
SAM ELLIOTT AND BLYTHE DANNER IN I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS
Growing old is not for sissies, or timid screenwriters
Blythe Danner is accustomed to playing the wife of Bob DiNero in crude comedies. So now they say she "has finally gotten a chance to show what she can do" in a movie built around her, as she is now, an attractive woman of around seventy. It is directed by Brett Haley, who previously did a movie called The New Year. The summary of The New Year is "Sunny gives up a promising future to return to her hometown to care for her ailing father and finds herself working at a bowling alley. When a charming high school rival returns for the holidays, Sunny is forced to reexamine her life." I'll See You in My Dreams is a similar life-affirming, homespun drama about important things. It is, you might say, a bittersweet comedy. Actually, despite the chugging-along, happy-talk guitar-and-synthy score and Danner's watchable performance, its sketchy action and dreary outcomes make it more of a downer than it may at first appear. To call it a rom-com for older people seems a sick joke since (spoiler alert!) the foxy new boyfriend of the foxy older lady dies after the first few dates. Other topics of this film, which transpires in Southern California, are: a dying dog; mild bonding (bridge, marijuana, cruise planning) among older ladies (Alexander Payne's June Squibb, TV vet Rhea Perlman, the excellent Mary Kay Place); bonding and karaoke with a pool boy called Lloyd (Apatow cast member Martin Starr); a rat in the house; speed dating (embarrassing); adoption of a new dog (elderly). The listed topic of I'll See You in My Dreams is "A widow and former songstress discovers that life can begin anew at any age." Looks like it can begin anew, only to end again rather quickly. You wouldn't want to go through what Blythe Danner goes through in this misleadingly blithe-seeming film. A better film might start with the most challenging of these events and show how she deals with them, instead of confusing or diluting them with trivial detail. Adopting another, cute but eleven-year-old, dog does not seem much of a conclusion or solution. Now there's another spoiler. But is adopting another dog an exciting surprise that must be concealed from viewers?
The movie gets to a slow start with the death of the favorite canine, who must be put to sleep and whose ashes are then placed on the mantelpiece next to the husband's. (This would be material for dark comedy, but it is presented without comment.) Carol (Danner) is a widow whose husband, he of the ashes, died in a plane crash twenty years ago. She has a daughter (the uninteresting Malin Åkerman) in New York, who comes to visit. We don't learn the daughter's occupation, romantic status, or much else. This isn't a screenplay that goes in for a lot of context. Carol is sad, sits by the pool a lot, and sips wine. Lloyd, the pool cleaner, joins her. Nice fellow, who's come home to care for his ailing mother and taken a crap job (like the woman in Haley's The New Year); but this would just be stalling for time, were it not a transition into reminding Carol of a time when her life was exciting. Carol used to be a singer, and Lloyd writes songs, so they go to a bar for karaoke. Carol blows Lloyd away by singing "Cry Me a River." And that feels good.
This shows Carol once had a life, and we realize the loss of her beloved dog is a symptom of a larger void. Is a January-December romance with Lloyd coming? Not hardly; but we realize Carol is a terrific dresser, and looks great all the time. She understandably prefers life in her nice house with its pool to the bridge partners' collective elder residence. The void has only now appeared. This is momentarily filled by Bill (Sam Elliott). Bill bypasses a "speed dating" session at the retirement community where Carol's bridge partners reside, though he himself lives there. As a silver fox, Sam Elliott fills the bill to a T. He is tall, lean, tan, nicely coiffed, impressively mustachioed, and sports a long phallic cigar of good quality which he does not light. Sam Elliott plays this part memorably, with quiet panache. He has a take-charge manner that at the same time is courtly and kind. He's perfect! Only we don't know much about Bill except that he has a new yacht called So What? (from Miles Davis' Kind of Blue), he has no family, and he recently lived in Texas. His sudden disappearance is a shocker that fizzles, seems unfair, and winds up feeling like a scenario cop-out.
What are the highlights of this movie? The sudden appearances of the field rat in Carol's living room? (No rats were harmed.) Carol's performance of "Cry Me a River"? Her boat ride with Bill? Their kisses? Their sweet (only suggested) time in bed? Certainly not the time Carol and the girls try "medical" marijuana, get obligatory munchies and giggles, buy junk food at the store and are stopped late at night by a cop? One comes away mainly with the memory of an attractive older woman sipping a lot of wine and briefly spending time with a dreamboat her own age. It's not enough, and neither Blythe Danner's performance nor the screenplay can provide anything to take away other than a few giggles and sighs for the older arthouse crowd, who get more to chew on from English offerings like Far From the Madding Crowd or the coming Testament of Youth and more to laugh at and less fraught elder romance from the Exotic Marigold Hotel films. Old girls just want to have fun. The final moments of this movie give away for sure that this is a screenplay that despite its avoidance of cliché, cannot manage to provide enough solid matter in its place.
Blythe Danner is good. And three cheers for Sam Elliott! They both have a lot of style. And this movie has a classy, glossy look, without being too slick or fake (except for the predictable Sundance indie music) and never departs from good taste, even in its silliest moments. But the subject matter and the cast deserved better.
I'll See You in My Dreams, 92 mins., debuted at Sundance January 2015, and opened theatrically (US) 15 May 2015.
http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/blyd.jpg
SAM ELLIOTT AND BLYTHE DANNER IN I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS
Growing old is not for sissies, or timid screenwriters
Blythe Danner is accustomed to playing the wife of Bob DiNero in crude comedies. So now they say she "has finally gotten a chance to show what she can do" in a movie built around her, as she is now, an attractive woman of around seventy. It is directed by Brett Haley, who previously did a movie called The New Year. The summary of The New Year is "Sunny gives up a promising future to return to her hometown to care for her ailing father and finds herself working at a bowling alley. When a charming high school rival returns for the holidays, Sunny is forced to reexamine her life." I'll See You in My Dreams is a similar life-affirming, homespun drama about important things. It is, you might say, a bittersweet comedy. Actually, despite the chugging-along, happy-talk guitar-and-synthy score and Danner's watchable performance, its sketchy action and dreary outcomes make it more of a downer than it may at first appear. To call it a rom-com for older people seems a sick joke since (spoiler alert!) the foxy new boyfriend of the foxy older lady dies after the first few dates. Other topics of this film, which transpires in Southern California, are: a dying dog; mild bonding (bridge, marijuana, cruise planning) among older ladies (Alexander Payne's June Squibb, TV vet Rhea Perlman, the excellent Mary Kay Place); bonding and karaoke with a pool boy called Lloyd (Apatow cast member Martin Starr); a rat in the house; speed dating (embarrassing); adoption of a new dog (elderly). The listed topic of I'll See You in My Dreams is "A widow and former songstress discovers that life can begin anew at any age." Looks like it can begin anew, only to end again rather quickly. You wouldn't want to go through what Blythe Danner goes through in this misleadingly blithe-seeming film. A better film might start with the most challenging of these events and show how she deals with them, instead of confusing or diluting them with trivial detail. Adopting another, cute but eleven-year-old, dog does not seem much of a conclusion or solution. Now there's another spoiler. But is adopting another dog an exciting surprise that must be concealed from viewers?
The movie gets to a slow start with the death of the favorite canine, who must be put to sleep and whose ashes are then placed on the mantelpiece next to the husband's. (This would be material for dark comedy, but it is presented without comment.) Carol (Danner) is a widow whose husband, he of the ashes, died in a plane crash twenty years ago. She has a daughter (the uninteresting Malin Åkerman) in New York, who comes to visit. We don't learn the daughter's occupation, romantic status, or much else. This isn't a screenplay that goes in for a lot of context. Carol is sad, sits by the pool a lot, and sips wine. Lloyd, the pool cleaner, joins her. Nice fellow, who's come home to care for his ailing mother and taken a crap job (like the woman in Haley's The New Year); but this would just be stalling for time, were it not a transition into reminding Carol of a time when her life was exciting. Carol used to be a singer, and Lloyd writes songs, so they go to a bar for karaoke. Carol blows Lloyd away by singing "Cry Me a River." And that feels good.
This shows Carol once had a life, and we realize the loss of her beloved dog is a symptom of a larger void. Is a January-December romance with Lloyd coming? Not hardly; but we realize Carol is a terrific dresser, and looks great all the time. She understandably prefers life in her nice house with its pool to the bridge partners' collective elder residence. The void has only now appeared. This is momentarily filled by Bill (Sam Elliott). Bill bypasses a "speed dating" session at the retirement community where Carol's bridge partners reside, though he himself lives there. As a silver fox, Sam Elliott fills the bill to a T. He is tall, lean, tan, nicely coiffed, impressively mustachioed, and sports a long phallic cigar of good quality which he does not light. Sam Elliott plays this part memorably, with quiet panache. He has a take-charge manner that at the same time is courtly and kind. He's perfect! Only we don't know much about Bill except that he has a new yacht called So What? (from Miles Davis' Kind of Blue), he has no family, and he recently lived in Texas. His sudden disappearance is a shocker that fizzles, seems unfair, and winds up feeling like a scenario cop-out.
What are the highlights of this movie? The sudden appearances of the field rat in Carol's living room? (No rats were harmed.) Carol's performance of "Cry Me a River"? Her boat ride with Bill? Their kisses? Their sweet (only suggested) time in bed? Certainly not the time Carol and the girls try "medical" marijuana, get obligatory munchies and giggles, buy junk food at the store and are stopped late at night by a cop? One comes away mainly with the memory of an attractive older woman sipping a lot of wine and briefly spending time with a dreamboat her own age. It's not enough, and neither Blythe Danner's performance nor the screenplay can provide anything to take away other than a few giggles and sighs for the older arthouse crowd, who get more to chew on from English offerings like Far From the Madding Crowd or the coming Testament of Youth and more to laugh at and less fraught elder romance from the Exotic Marigold Hotel films. Old girls just want to have fun. The final moments of this movie give away for sure that this is a screenplay that despite its avoidance of cliché, cannot manage to provide enough solid matter in its place.
Blythe Danner is good. And three cheers for Sam Elliott! They both have a lot of style. And this movie has a classy, glossy look, without being too slick or fake (except for the predictable Sundance indie music) and never departs from good taste, even in its silliest moments. But the subject matter and the cast deserved better.
I'll See You in My Dreams, 92 mins., debuted at Sundance January 2015, and opened theatrically (US) 15 May 2015.