Runtime: 1 hour, 42 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Theodore Melfi
Quick Impressions:
I considered skipping St. Vincent, waiting until Friday, and reviewing Birdman
this week instead. Spending my time and money wisely is a big goal of mine this fall, and I know I want to see Birdman, so holding off on St. Vincent was clearly the practical choice.
The thing is, I’m not a very practical person. (I’m also not handy, athletic, or reasonable.) But I am fun at parties (if you’re the host’s dog).
I tried to skip St. Vincent, but the Bill Murray fan in me got curious. (Surely there’s a Bill Murray fan in all of us.) Birdman can wait until next week, I finally decided. Of course, my real mis-step was (no doubt) seeing Fury last Friday and skipping The Judge earlier that week. What if Robert Duvall gets nominated for Best Supporting Actor? (He will, now that I didn’t see the movie. Watch. I’m sure I’m helping his campaign by missing the performance. It’s just my luck.)
Fall always brings such tough choices at the box office, and making choices is not my strong suit. (Seriously, I’m the type who always orders the usual every time I revisit a restaurant because if I actually take the time to examine the menu, I won’t be able to figure out what I want for breakfast until just before the place closes for the night.)
Seeing St. Vincent was a pretty good choice, though. If I hadn’t seen it, I would watch the next Oscar ceremony, always wondering in the back of my mind, Did Bill Murray deserve an Oscar nomination for Best Actor this year?
St. Vincent is the kind of film you’d probably have to try to hate, though the only real reason to love it is Bill Murray’s performance. It’s the kind of riveting star turn that gives purpose to the whole project. Meryl Streep has done a lot of films like this recently. If you reimagined them without her in the leading role, then the movies would just be mediocre (sometimes even odd), and that’s the case with St. Vincent, too. It’s pleasant, occasionally funny, often touching (though manipulatively so), and easy to watch, but the only thing that actually makes it something special is Bill Murray’s performance.
The Good:
Bill Murray is quite captivating in the title role, and you can see why the performance has generated some Oscar Buzz. I mean, 1.) He’s Bill Murray and yet hasn’t won an Oscar yet 2.) He’s not talking in his usual voice 3.) Some of the sufferings the character endures create additional acting challenges, ratcheting up the role difficulty significantly.
Murray makes Vincent a genuinely interesting guy (far more interesting than the movie he’s in, to be quite honest). To be even more brutally honest, when you hear all the details of Vincent’s past, you start to ask yourself, And why exactly does the story start here? If there’s a movie about this guy, why is this moment the portion of his life we’re looking at more closely?
But to be fair, that is the point of the movie. The most successful thing about the project (aside from Murray’s compelling performance) is the message it wants to convey (and does convey rather successfully). We cannot possibly know everything about other people the moment that we meet them, particularly not if we are completely wrapped up in our own problems. The idea seems to be that in the world, there is such suffering and difficulty that even extraordinary acts of kindness and compassion sometimes go unseen and unappreciated, not because people are unkind but because they are self-absorbed and life is hard for everyone.
At first glance, Vincent doesn’t seem to possess too many fine qualities, but as we look closer we discover that all his life, he has been Shel Silverstein’s Giving Tree, and now he’s nothing more than a beaten down, worn out old stump (though, rather extraordinarily, when you think about it) he still gives, even out of his poverty. He has rather questionable things to offer now, but he gives them anyway. (If he were really just the rotten, selfish old bastard everybody mistakes him for, when people asked him for favors, he would give a firm no rather than an obnoxious, “Fine.”)
Chris O’Dowd is marvelous in this film as the charming, funny priest who teaches at the boy’s school. I found myself looking forward to O’Dowd’s scenes the most. For one thing, I find that I like him increasingly as an actor. For another, this character and his agenda seem to be at the very heart of the movie. I’m pretty positive that this delightfully laid-back priest is the one articulating for us the message that the writer/director hopes the film will convey.
Honestly the most amazing thing St. Vincent shows us is what an extraordinarily effective education the boy is getting at that school. The mom definitely is not wasting her money there. Her son is learning something and how! (Hopefully, it’s what she wants him to be learning because the lessons there seem to be shaping his entire view of the world.) The movie is pretty good, but the school gets an A+, no question.
The movie works mainly because Murray makes his character so interesting. Even when elements of the story become a bit predictable or familiar, Murray makes exciting choices and finds novel ways to express the character on screen. And as I’ve said, I loved Chris O’Dowd’s scenes, partially because of his performance, but mostly because the script seems very invested in showcasing that character and his message. What makes St. Vincent unique is certainly not Vincent’s relationship with the boy. It’s what the priest’s priming and the boy’s interactions with Vincent help the child discover.
Apart from Murray, Melissa McCarthy provides the best dramatic acting in the film. It’s extremely refreshing to see her playing someone low key. She does comedy well, but she’s so over-the-top in so many movies (so many movies) that playing a realistic, ordinary person in a sweet drama seems like a very smart choice for her at this point. I’ve actually always preferred McCarthy’s dramatic side. She does the same thing in like every movie, but it still always works. She’s forever surprising us with moments where she unexpectedly opens up and becomes very vulnerable and increasingly distressed in a way that feels so natural and real. One minute everything’s fine, and then as we watch, before our eyes she becomes gradually more and more overwhelmed, surprised and dismayed by her own negative emotions, the underlying, fomenting distress that she can no longer contain. I’ve seen her do this in…well, like everything that she’s ever been in. But she does it so well, and here she provides one of the film’s strongest dramatic scenes.
Naomi Watts’s presence is much more baffling. At first, her character is hard to figure out. We know who she is and everything, but why is she there, and why is Watts playing her? Initially, the character seems too superficial, too much of a cliché. But I will admit that Daka does grow on you. By the end, I had definitely warmed to the character, and Watts and Murray have some fine moments together later in the story, particularly one very touching scene in the hospital.
Young Jaeden Lieberher is fantastic as Oliver. Sometimes it seems hard to believe that a boy is so much smarter, more perceptive, and more well-adjusted than all the adults around him, but then again, that’s not uncommon at all in the movies. Lieberher makes his character very likable and engaging and clearly has a lot of talent.
Also, I love Terrence Howard, and he has one especially great scene (one great moment, just the look on his face, his reaction). I wish he were in the movie more.
Best Scene:
By the end of the movie, we’re totally expecting both the “fight” between Oliver and Vincent and the scene when what Oliver has learned from the relationship touches Vincent deeply. Still both scenes really do (manipulatively) evoke an emotional response.
Best Scene Visually:
I love the scene when Vincent and Oliver ride away from the track luxuriantly celebrating their victory with soft serve ice cream cones. The image captures the spirit of their relationship perfectly.
Best Action Sequence:
I love Terrence Howard, so I may be biased here, but I’m very fond of his scene in Vincent’s house. What happens here adds another wrinkle of complexity to the story, so it’s already gripping. But Howard plays the moment really well.
Murray also takes a rather impressive fall very early in the story that (for some baffling reason) makes us really invested in and intrigued by the character.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Bill Murray:
Murray’s most powerful scenes all involve the character of Sandy. I like the moment when they sit together beside the pond, and she casually calls him by name, but even better is the scene with Ann Dowd and the box.
I must say, though, the moment when Vincent takes his time and quite deliberately tells Daka something from his hospital bed is very nice, too.
The bottom line is, Bill Murray is a great actor with brilliant comedic timing and a gift for more dramatic work, too. I have a hard time right now believing that he will get an Oscar nomination for his work here simply because Best Actor is always competitive and his performance is more special than the film as a whole. Still this is a fantastic performance, one more brilliant character from a man who has given us a lifetime of memorable performances. If he does win awards for it, great. Any accolades Bill Murray gets are certainly more than deserved.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Melissa McCarthy:
I’ve already touched on this, but I loved McCarthy’s meltdown in the principal’s office. This type of “surprise, I have feelings, and I’m drowning!” thing is something McCarthy has always done particularly well. But I especially like this scene because it feels so real, so authentic, and it illustrates a point I think the film is trying to drive home. The mother is so upset that she assumes the son is upset for the same reasons that she is. Instead of looking at others with clear eyes, she’s seeing everyone else in the world through the filter of her own particular unhappiness (which is what usually happens with all of us).
I doubt Melissa McCarthy will get nominated for this role, but the scene is impeccably played and a highlight of the film.
The Negatives:
The premise—I mean the really basic set up—of this movie reminded me immediately of About a Boy (less the movie with Hugh Grant than the much later TV spinoff with Minnie Driver, the pilot of which I watched because it came on after something with no commercial interruptions). Seriously, St. Vincent opens in an almost identical way. Not making the comparison will be possible only for those who have not seen About a Boy.
The kid and his struggling single mom move in next door to a seemingly lazy, unpleasant man who immediately gets off on the wrong foot with the mother. Then the boy gets bullied by some kids at school and seeks refuge with the less-than-friendly man next door who takes him under his wing for mostly selfish reasons.
If I were writer/director Theodore Melfi, I would have rewritten the beginning of my movie. As the film progresses, Vincent turns out to be a lot different than About a Boy guy, but the early similarities in the script are uncanny—unless of course, Melfi was inspired (consciously or otherwise) to write his film after watching About a Boy. (I’m not kidding here. As soon as the end credits rolled, I checked IMDB on my phone to see if Melfi had written the TV pilot for About a Boy. The similarities are that pronounced. I seriously thought it had to be somebody cannibalizing his own work. As far as I can tell, Melfi had nothing to do with the script, but I did learn (to my surprise) that About a Boy is still on the air. They put commercials in it now, though, so I’m unlikely to watch.)
The similarities are beyond uncanny. Seriously, even the neighborhood looks the same. These ridiculous similarities are incredibly distracting and seem so unnecessary, so avoidable. Why didn’t Melfi just rewrite the beginning of the movie (just the part introducing the neighbor and her kid)? Tweaking the set-up just a smidge would have worked wonders for the film’s overall effectiveness.
There are also some practical things about the plot that don’t quite make sense to me. I understand why Vincent needs money so badly, but has he tried getting a job? (I’m not trying to be a jerk. This is a sincere question.) Possibly he’s psychologically damaged and can’t hold a job. Possibly in this economy at his age, he can’t find a job. But we’re not given any evidence of this. He seems to be an intelligent and energetic man who is constantly up to something, full of schemes and plots and gambles that actually keep him incredibly busy. He’s older, and probably diminished from his younger self, but he’s certainly not weak or lethargic. He endures some horrible stuff, and near the end, there’s a rather considerable ordeal that he overcomes pretty quickly and with great focus and determination. I wish we knew more about his present situation.
Of course, first we have to care enough to want to know more, and that’s what this movie is about, so I can’t fault it too much. Maybe if he gets a job he forfeits some kind of pension. (My own grandfather faced a similar situation, so I realize the expense and difficulty of one element of Vincent’s life. Care can be prohibitively expensive, and yet you can’t just stick your loved ones in the closet or something.) I just wish we saw a reason that Vincent couldn’t find money through legitimate means (or even some evidence that he had tried). And that reason can’t simply be alcoholism because he’s still functioning despite his drinking problem.
I also spent a lot of the movie’s early scenes feeling very baffled by Daka, but then by the end she was practically my favorite character, and I totally adored her rapport with Vincent. So while I think the character is odd, I cannot deny that in life there are many odd characters, and often our lives our richer for knowing them.
What’s hard to put into words, though, is this sense I left the theater with that something more should have happened. (Or maybe something less. Maybe there should have been fewer clichéd or trite story elements.) Murray’s performance is great, but the film never rises to the same greatness. It’s hard to say why. It’s almost like it won’t let itself. The message it wants to communicate is fantastic, but it chooses a really safe and formulaic way of presenting that story. I liked the movie, but while certain moments were brilliant, overall I thought St. Vincent made safe, lazy choices too often. With its talented cast and genuinely meaningful moral, this could have been a much, much greater film than it is, and it’s hard not to feel slightly disappointed by that realization.
Overall:
Bill Murray fans definitely need to see St. Vincent. As always, he’s very funny and gives a fantastic performance. The supporting cast is great, too, and the story is reasonably uplifting and enjoyable (if a little bland). I hope Bill Murray does get an Oscar someday because he deserves one. In the meantime, we can all continue to enjoy the always captivating characters he consistently creates on screen.