On the Rocks

This movie is a tone-deaf failure with a boring sitcom plot and actors who don't gel. Even though it reunites Bill Murray and Sofia Coppola, it has none of the charm and atmosphere of Lost in Translation.

Murray looks like he's doing it as a favor for Coppola, but would actually rather be somewhere else. His delivery is strangely affectless and his character is utterly unlikeable. The main character is written to be deliberately uninteresting and charmless - I actually felt a bit bad for the actress who had to portray her that way. She has no chemistry with the actor who portrays her husband, and every time they're together it seems more like an awkward first date than a scene from a marriage. Their two children are super cute but have almost no dramatic role and spend most of the movie with babysitters while the main characters are drinking and eating at fancy restaurants and parties.

The plot is totally pedestrian and can be summed up as: "I think my husband is having an affair. Let's follow him and see if we can catch him in the act!" And then, uh oh, now Lucy has a lot of splainin' to do. Fortunately, the characters are all rich, so they don't have to worry much about the consequences of bad decisions. Viewers are left with little more than an off-putting taste of life in the bubble of New York City privilege and wealth.

4/10 - maybe my taste is just too low brow, but this movie ended without anything worthwhile happening, leaving me unfulfilled and feeling robbed of my time

I couldn't disagree more with the bad reviews.This is a quiet film about a woman losing herself in her various roles as mother, wife, daughter, writer. It is also about communication (much like Lost in translation) and misunderstanding, about growing up and finding the confidence to define oneself as a woman apart from your father's shadow. In the end it is about love and relationships (also New York looks great). This is not a shallow film as some would have it, it is just not pretentious or full of pseudo-intellectual dialogue like most Baumbach or Ethan Hawke films. It's light -weight, real, tender and feminine and we need more of these. You can always rely on Bill Murray's charisma but Rashida Jones' sensitive performance is still the focus here.

Sofia Coppola teams up with Bill Murray for the first time since their 2003 masterpiece. The film has him leading his daughter around NYC on a mission to catch her husband having an affair. It all feels very slight -- like a caper comedy about rich people problems. Murray's charisma carries the bulk of the running time, and there are some good scenes. However, it lacks any and all profundity... settling for mild chuckles and forgoing the sting in the tail that the film so desperately needed.

Previews are better than the movie, with the ending a complete letdown after what seemed like three hours of nothing. Murray's character is cliche. The womanizer who knows everyone, or relative of, thus talking himself through every situation, makes the movie lack any sense urgency or conflict. The only conflict is whether Wayans is cheating or not. In the end, there's zero fallout from a wasted agenda. Unless you love these actors when they're not funny, skip it. Wayans, Jones, Murray and Coppola are so much better than this money grab.