St. Vincent (2014)

Film: St. Vincent (2014)
Stars: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Jaeden Lieberher, Naomi Watts, Chris O'Dowd, Terrence Howard
Director: Theodore Melfi
Oscar History: It got nods at both the SAG Awards and the Globes, but it couldn't cinch it at the Oscars
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Bill Murray is one of those celebrities I frequently find myself just at my saturation point regarding.  There are certain celebrities that I think are wildly overrated (Hugh Jackman, Jamie Foxx...I could list people like the Kardashians and the Real Housewives, but that's like the Free Space in Bingo) and then there are actors I think are wildly underrated (Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney, most actresses over the age of forty in Hollywood).  Murray is right at the saturation point.  Don't get me wrong-he's a terrific actor.  I am already dreading the Penn/Depp/Murray OVP decision of 2003 (and I haven't even seen Ben Kingsley yet!), and Broken Flowers has that devastatingly heartbreaking scene toward the end of the picture (if you haven't seen it yet, please make the point to), but like Steve Martin and Matthew McConaughey, the internet has put him in a class that approaches godlike status, and I just can't get there with him.  Too few films that deserve the kudos, too prickly of a personality outside of his work to truly appreciate him in that regard, and clearly stuck on himself quite a bit (though admittedly this is true of most actors).  That being said, I went into St. Vincent fairly charmed by the trailers and loving both Murray's part (perfect casting!) and the supporting crew, and had an open mind.

(Spoilers Ahead) Unfortunately for me, that open mind wasn't truly necessary.  This isn't the sort of film that really requires you to stretch, and aside from a couple of interesting flourishes, isn't the sort of film that required the screenwriters to use much muscle either.  The film is about Vincent MacKenna (Murray) a man who spends most of his days living in debt, switching his time between a prostitute named Daka (Watts) and nights in a bar.  All-in-all, he's the sort of down-on-his-luck curmudgeon that we've gotten used to every actor of a certain age playing (seriously-name me a famous actor over seventy that hasn't played this role in the past twenty years).  However, after a fateful day where a moving van runs into his car, he meets a newly-single mom named Maggie (McCarthy) and her precocious son Oliver (Lieberher), and suddenly becomes an unlikely friend for Oliver.

Watching the trailers for this film, I figured there must be something unique about the movie that I was missing.  Murray, notoriously prickly and usually only taking this style of film when he's decided he wants an Oscar (something he's clearly had his eye on since losing to Penn in 2003...how else to explain Hyde Park on Hudson?) must have seen something interesting in the script.  I mean, I get why the rest of the cast and director signed on (you get to work with Bill Murray!), but Murray himself indicated there was something more here.  Sadly, there isn't-this film was made dozens of times since the 1980's, and we'll see it yet again by Christmas, this time with musical numbers in Annie.  The film has the requisite "teaching him to fight" scene, the requisite "child who unexpectedly swears scene," the requisite "take child to inappropriate locations," scene...it's a series of horrible filmic cliches.

The best thing I can say about the film is the cast, but not necessarily the cast you're thinking I'll celebrate.  Murray occasionally has moments of brilliance-there's no denying that comic timing, and there's a madcap moment of slapstick brilliance over the end credits that you'll be absolutely enthralled by, but by-and-large this seems like he isn't really stretching.  Yes, it's good, but it's not great, and from the man who haunted my filmic dreams in Lost in Translation, I wish some director would truly pull him outside his comfort zone again like Sofia Coppola did.

Melissa McCarthy, in my opinion, is doing the best work here.  The most frequent complaint you hear about McCarthy is "why can't she be more like Sookie again?" (I say this with love, as multiple members of my family and friend group have said this to me whenever the actress is discussed).  That entire argument is a conversation for a different article entirely, but suffice it to say actors go through stages in their careers, and McCarthy is currently in a broader, more slapstick aspect of hers right now.  Still, this is the closest she's been to playing "Sookie" in a while, a harried mother who has to deal with the dissolution of her marriage and her anger toward her cheating ex-husband (and trying to hide that anger from her son, which she does a lousy job at), and making ends meet.  Life hasn't been fair with her, but she handles it in the way most of us would, rather than letting everything slide in a "screw you world" way that Vincent does.  Her performance is tempered with realism (her breakdown scene looks like something that would actually happen when she goes to the priest's office, and not just an expositional tool to give us background on the character), though she still lands all of her laughs and does her job subtly enough to show the path that Vincent could have taken, but decided against.  Watts and O'Dowd both have the great supporting comic bits in the movie (I love it when Watts does comedy and O'Dowd is so effortlessly charming in everything these days), but McCarthy's character was the one I found myself thinking about the next day.

My final problem with this film (which I will admit was at least short) is that I think it's time for us to give up on certain tropes of the Eighties because they're A) played out and B) highly unrealistic.  In real life, no sane-minded person would trust someone like Vincent with their children-the man should be in jail, and certainly shouldn't be shaping the minds of a young person.  Even in Maggie's precarious financial situation this seems unlikely.  These horrible guardian films seem completely dated in the same way that body-swapping comedies do-there doesn't seem to be anything interesting or new to say here. It's time screenwriters found a more interesting way to use aging actors than to pair them with a precocious tot, give them free comedic reign, and then let the plot go out for lunch.

Those are my thoughts on St. Vincent-how about yours?  Have you caught the movie yet?  If not, what do you think about the career trajectories of McCarthy and Murray (and the internet's obsession with Murray)?  Share in the comments!