St. Vincent
(2014)
(SPOILERS) Apart from the accent, which he
finds a wee bit tricky, Bill Murray could phone in this kind of role during his
sleep. The grumpy but likeable curmudgeon. He even attempts to atone for
passing on Bad Santa by making
friends with a loveable little squirt. The familiarity dripping from every pore
of St. Vincent isn’t really its
biggest problem, it’s that it’s so shameless in scraping together something
heart-warming and life-affirming from the signatures of other better movies
that it leaves little room for feeling anything genuine at all.
See also: As Good As
it Gets, About a Boy. Murray’s
going for – I assume – a Brooklyn accent. I tend to be fairly lazy about
calling out dodgy accents. Ones that bug the hell out of people get a free
pass, but even I could hear he was having problems. I suspect it interfered
with his naturally laidback cadence, as familiar tones kept seeping back in.
He’s the title character, for whom sainthood is a key and saccharine component of
the final act. Vincent’s a ‘Nam vet so Murray’s back in familiar Stripes territory, only less
anarchically so.
Theodore Melfi’s feature debut follows the kind of
indie-lite trajectory found in many a recent picture featuring young/old casts
and cockle-warming sentimentality. Most of these also star Steve Carrell,
because there’s nothing like a bit of indie slumming (see Little Miss Sunshine and The
Way Way Back) to add prestige value to a Hollywood thespian. Particularly
one known for comedy who wants to convince others of his chops. Which there’s
nothing at all wrong with this per se, this type of movie has become a very
definite type by this point. Edge-free, with a sprinkling of rites of passage
and a bridging of the generation gap. That might be why St. Vincent wasn’t quite the slam-dunk The Weinsteins no doubt
hoped it would be (as in, it didn’t turn into the next Little Master Sunshine).
Also on-board the celebrity credibility train is Naomi Watts
as pregnant lady of the night shag-buddy Daka. Watts doesn’t need to confirm her
credibility. Well, she didn’t’ before this and Diana. She’s off the scale for alarmingly accented Eastern
Europeans, and at least helps Murray by distracting from his variable vocal
performance.
It doesn’t stop there. Everyone seemed to think this was dramedy
gold dust, including Chris O’Dowd as Brother Geraghty. O’Dowd has already far
exceeded any remaining goodwill he garnered early in his career through his
determined efforts to whore himself about into any movie anywhere that will
take him. Terrence Howard has little more than a cameo as loan shark Zucko. Ann
Dowd who really is cameoing, which is a shame.
Most of all, there’s Melissa McCarthy as Vincent’s new
neighbour Maggie. She’s the mother of Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher, putting in a
decent showing and wisely not trying
an accent, he’s saddled with the most unlikely precocious dialogue conceivable),
who is stuck being babysat by Vincent (for 12 dollars an hour) while she works
shifts as a CAT scanner (yes, that will
prove to be a vital plot point). McCarthy’s fine but it’s not a great part. I
don’t think she farts or belches though, so it’s progress of a sort.
Just like Thurman Merman in Bad Santa, Oliver is being bullied at school, and just like in Bad Santa the aging mentor initiates
payback. Less directly, so it isn’t nearly as much fun or as reprehensible. In
fact, Melfi makes a point of having Vincent punch Ocinski (Dario Barosso) in a soundtracked
moment of triumph and jubilation and then
backtracks when Daka Finds out (“Violence
is for assholes”). Too late: it’s clearly commendable to teach kids to
solve their problems through aggression. What’s more, it’s doubly all right
because they’ll make friends with the guy who bullied them. So much so, Ocinski
will even be sitting at the dinner table with the makeshift family come the
last scene.
Vincent is mired in bad neighbourness, but not irredeemably
so, ways, of course. He’s a drunk, a gambler (the picture opts not to picks resolve
how he steals Oliver’s winnings/savings, presumably because that would be too
much of a downer) and inveterate grouch. But he also has a wife with Alzheimer’s
whom he keeps quiet about, he supports Daka through her pregnancy, and he saved
buddies lying face down in the mud in ‘Nam. Even got a medal for it.
The picture is much better when it is reticent.
Unfortunately it has to go and open the floodgates. Vincent’s wife dies, he has
a stroke (again, best not to dwell on this; Bill acting like he can’t speak
properly gets in the way of what he does best, speaking properly) and, in the
ultimate contrived conflation, Oliver’s class are asked by Brother Geraghty to
deliver presentations on who they think qualifies as “Saints Among Us”.
Melfi directs casually and unobtrusively, so he should fit in
comfortably with bigger budget middling romps. Next up is Going in Style, an aging heist movie with Michael Caine, Morgan
Freeman and Alan Arkin. You’d want to see it just for the stars, unless you’ve
already seen Stand Up Guys and Last Vegas. And, since Zach Braff is
co-directing, one really shouldn’t expect much.
St. Vincent isn’t wholly objectionable or anything,
and Murray could read the phone book and be watchable, but it’s relentlessly
and offputtingly manipulative. It comes equipped with incessant uplifting
montage music, even when there aren’t any montages. Wiki put it best in the synopsis; “the film ends with all of them at the dinner table happily eating
together”. I might have lost my lunch at that point, if the sainthood
presentation hadn’t already compelled me to stick my fist in my face.
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