On the Rocks (2020)

Film: On the Rocks (2020)

Stars: Rashida Jones, Bill Murray, Marlon Wayans

Director: Sofia Coppola

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Some directors take you on a journey, and you are willing to go back no matter what.  This has been the case for me with Sofia Coppola.  I will not pretend to have seen every one of her films, but I try to see as many as I can when they are out, and all of that stems from my first outing with her, Lost in Translation.  I distinctly remember where I saw this film, in a theater that is no longer in existence (not from Covid but due to gentrification) with several friends, and I was just in awe.  I left mesmerized, and in the years since it has graduated into one of my all-time favorite films, one that perfectly encapsulates why I love the movies.  Coppola's pictures since have usually been more miss (Marie Antoinette, The Beguiled) than hit (The Bling Ring, which is delicious if never as flawless as LiT), but she has forever earned a place in my heart for Lost in Translation, and her reuniting with Bill Murray for this movie...I couldn't finish up 2020 without visiting it.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is pretty simple, with Laura (Jones) a writer in an idyllic marriage to Dean (Wayans) worried he is straying on her.  This stems from her complicated relationship with her doting father Felix (Murray) a philanderer who doesn't think anyone is good enough for his daughter, and insists that her husband is cheating on her.  As the movie progresses, they get into a series of escapades, many of them foolish, in trying to catch Dean in the act, nearly wrecking Laura's marriage when it turns out that Dean is not cheating, and she's falling into the same sort of paranoid traps her father has for years in his relationships.  The film ends with the couple back together, and after a fight, Laura & Felix going back to their strange, loving relationship (with Laura hopefully a little wiser to falling into her father's shenanigans).

The movie is not at all what I expect from Coppola.  It's not bad, but it just lacks any of her social commentary or panache.  Coppola has become an expert at examining the specific life of upper-middle class women, and she does that here, but it doesn't have the artistry that we expect even in her least films.  This is just a movie, a funny one (Jones & Murray have great chemistry), but one that lacks her specific brand of insight.  I am kind of staggered Coppola (who usually only makes movies ever 3-4 years), picked this pretty forgettable picture as the one that she wanted to stake a new decade on, and feel like I missed something in the delivery as it's so good-but-basic.

Murray's character should be more interesting than he is, but even there the film feels merely "adequate" (I'm going three stars mostly because it's not bad, it's not good...this would be a 2.5 star if I did halves, but I lean toward watchable because of the chemistry).  His character is brimming with a level of toxic masculinity that feels like it needs an explanation (even though that heaps out of many corners of American culture these days without warning), but we never get one.  Murray could play this role in his sleep-this is not Bob Harris, a career-defining role, and it'll be a weird choice for a second nomination (and an even weirder one if Murray somehow gets on a winner's track, which I doubt but you never know with a star of a certain age).  Either way, though, the movie & Murray himself are just fine.