Un coeur à prendre

I'm hit and miss with Witherspoon movies. I like her in a fun, need a vapid relaxation movie kinda way, but this surprised me a little. It's a cute rom com etc as expected but what was a bit different in this is that the boy toy characters actually had depth and were interesting people, which made it much more enjoyable to watch. Not going on a favorite movies list but definitely worth a fun watch on movie night.

Home Again is one of those movies that's easy to like and easy to forget. It's amateurish, the characters are flat and one-dimensional and the story is practically a celebration in vapidity and contrivance. Despite this, there's not a mean bone in Home Again's body. There's lightness to it. It's boring but charming in much the same way the interior of a Pier 1 is.

Reese Witherspoon stars as Alice Kinney, a recently separated mother of two who has returned to her childhood home in California to start over. Her mother (Bergen) and deceased father were once considered Hollywood royalty; a fact that three young potential filmmakers (Wolff, Alexander, Rudnitsky) go positively gaga for when they meet her at a bar celebrating her 40th birthday. Blah, blah, blah the three end up moving into the guest house. The estranged husband (Sheen) shows up later making four and Reese Witherspoon tries to cobble together a life amid the chaos.

Did I say chaos, I meant unrealistically utopian equilibrium. Alice and her brother-husbands seem to have little scruples about living in a house together. This is in large part because they don't display any of the negative attributes of a regular human being. Stubbornness becomes selflessness and possessiveness is painted like enamored school boy crushes. Most of the external conflicts exist despite the setup and all the internal conflicts have the undemanding clarity of a children's storybook. To top it all off we're given the comparable setting of a 30's screwball comedy, vis a vis an expansive Hollywood villa, ensuring that the prime demographic will finally have a respite from the grave, emotionally challenging story arcs of The Gilmore Girls (2000-2007).

The movie takes its reverse Three's Company (1976-1984) setup exactly where you think it's going to go. At one point one of Alice's friend's muses that she has 24-hour childcare, tech support and sex all under one roof. Because the children are around, the dynamic stays as pallid and PG as it can, with focus being constantly siphoned off into unnecessary subplots. These subplots provide the few moments of character development for the three boys, but once they're living and interacting in Alice's quaint Spanish style abode, it becomes clear that the main reason for them being in this movie is to be a plot device.

This is where, if you read way too much into it like I did, you get to the good stuff. If viewed through a specific lens, Home Again could be seen as an examination of modern gender relations. At 40, Alice struggles with never truly finding the complete package – a handsome man who can exhibit maturity, meet obligations, provide economic stability, and healthy emotional growth for her and her children while seeing Alice as an equal. This point is further highlighted by the fact that she idolizes her father despite him not exactly being a prize either. So instead of compromising she compartmentalizes. She fits the guys in this film into boxes of positive traits and for the most part, they fit them, at least until the plot deems this equilibrium is no longer stable.

Obviously this line of thought coaxes a lot of interesting questions about masculinity, femininity and modern relationships. But using this movie as a starting point for such a discussion is like reading Tarot through McDonalds Monopoly tokens. This movie isn't Antonia's Line (1995) it's Sweet Home Alabama (2002); which is to say a fluffy and forgettable piece of popular entertainment.

That said Home Again is not all that unpleasant to sit through, in large part because Witherspoon knows exactly how to move sugary confections like this. She proves effortlessly charming and despite some bad editing and awkward staging, Home Again glides on the power of her gossamer wings to give us a moderately entertaining distraction. See it if you must.

Let me preface this by say that I love movies, I'm not a movie snob by any stretch. I particularly love Rom-Coms and have been disappointed that they have fallen out of favor over the last decade or so. Some of my favorite movies are cheesy Rom-Coms; Never Been Kissed, 13 Going on 30, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Holiday and even Ghost of Girlfriends Past.

I saw this film as a pre-screener ahead of it's official release. Sometimes they pre-screen movies because they are great and want them to get buzz, sometimes they are really bad, and hope the audience falls in love before the critics get their hands on it. This is bad, really bad. Not just in story, but in acting, directing, editing score; you name it, it's bad. I love Reese Witherspoon and never thought I would see her phone in a performance but here it is. She doesn't so much as act as rolls her eyes and makes goofy faces; it's embarrassing to watch. There are so many cast members here that usually can do no wrong in my book; Candice Bergen, Lake Bell, Michael Sheen. They are given nothing to work with and Michael Sheen's character is nothing more than a cartoon. Nat Wolff is up and coming; I've seen him in a few things and think he's generally pretty good. Thanks to the very poor editing you can see him laughing in two scenes where he's clearly not supposed to be.

The whole film is just embarrassingly bad. You know the movie Mother's Day, how "bad" that is? It looks like an Oscar winning film compared to this. I looked up the movie after the screening, curious how it went so wrong. It's written and directed by Nancy Myer's daughter. Her daughter seems to have no credentials to be able to sell and direct a movie so my thought is that there were a lot of favors and strings pulled and it shows. I wouldn't even recommend watching this movie if you were sick in bed and it happened to pop up on TV.

Despite liking romantic comedy (there are some good ones out there, as well as some not so good ones) and liking Reese Witherspoon and Michael Sheen in other things, expectations were low for 'Home Again' due to the mixed to negative critical reception and mixed audience reaction.

Watching it with an open mind 'Home Again' has its bright spots, enough to make it a one-time watch, and is better than reputed. On the other hand, it also is an uneven film and mostly forgettable fluff. As said, it has good things. Witherspoon, being the lead, was crucial for the film to work, the good news is that, although she has been better in material worthier of her talent, she gives her character and 'Home Again' a very likable energy and very sweet charm. The other acting standout is Sheen, who does bag some very funny (at times hilarious) moments that gives the film much needed levity and gravitas.

The best performance of the three young men taken in goes to Jon Rudnitsky, his character is the most interestingly written of the three and he is the most charismatic and easy to like of the three. 'Home Again' is nicely made with a peppy score, while also boasting a good-natured sweet tone, some funny, cheerful moments and a few snappy lines. The children are cute without being overly so.

'Home Again' however could have been much better. The film does feel rushed (while there are some scenes too that limp), which would have been solved easily with a longer length (15 minutes more would have made a difference) and trying to do less. It does feel like too much was crammed in and it consequently means that the film lacks depth in particularly how the characters are written. Here they are thinly sketched, one-dimensional and shallow. Humorous and touching moments are too far and between in a film that has very blandly fluffy romantic elements and other comedic elements that feel overplayed.

Of the three tyros only Rudnitsky works, whereas the other two struggle to keep up, their characters are too sketchily written, their dialogue is even weaker and they don't have the expertise or charisma here to rise above what they're given. Poor Candice Bergen is wasted with nothing to do, she never gets the chance to show off her charm and spunk. Some snappy moments in the script and sporadic funny and touching moments aside, the script is an over-egged and under-cooked soufflé with its fair share of awkward and cheesy lines and severe underwriting of the characters and their increasingly predictable and vague situations. Some interesting ideas and insights here that could have been delved into more.

Story-wise, everything just feels too pat and formulaic, and too much of it doesn't really go anywhere or feel resolved satisfactorily. There is very little to the conflict.

All in all, fluffy and not very memorable. Not unwatchable however, there are far worse films out there, of the genre, of the year and ever. 5/10 Bethany Cox

I've skimmed some of the reviews here, many of them so negative. What were those reviewers expecting? Shakespeare this is not. But it is a light, cute romantic comedy, and I enjoyed watching it. Sitting home alone on Christmas Eve, I spent a nice hour and a half watching these pleasant looking characters in a pleasant looking environment leading their pleasant, contrived and comical lives. That, and a bowl of popcorn - hey, it could have been a lot worse.