After Mark Andrus put on his tuxedo for the 70th Academy Awards — where he was a Best Original Screenplay co-nominee (with director James L. Brooks) for As Good As It Gets — I wonder if he started out the door, paused, and stepped back in and said that titular line with his best Jack Nicholson impression: “what if this is as good as it gets?”
After scripting a few feel-good/life-lesson flicks (Life as a House, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Georgia Rule), Andrus has returned with a complete plot for plot, paint-by-numbers reconstruction of his original feel-good/life-lesson flick, As Good As It Gets with And So It Goes. Except this time, his dickbag emotional shut-in (Michael Douglas) and his mousy muse (Diane Keaton) are at least age appropriate for a relationship. Oh, and this time, there’s a much larger dog for his nemesis that he (also) grows to love after tormenting it at the beginning. That dog will hump an overstuffed teddy bear. So at least that’s new.
This time Melvin Udall is Oren Little (Douglas). A real estate tycoon who’s attempting to sell his mansion to various ethnic couples for $8 million. Meanwhile, he lives in his quaint four-plex where his tenants cannot comprehend the inhuman rudeness that he’s cultivated for himself. He’s a statuesque display of prickhood. Entirely unloveable, we’re told. Similar to Brooks’ film there’s an African American man (Maurice Jones) who won’t stand for this man’s common living space reign of unfeeling terror, particularly against his mate (Yaya Alafia). Oren’s neighbor is a 65-year-old jazz singer (a career step-up from Helen Hunt’s diner waitress) named Leah (Keaton). She can’t make it through a song without crying about her late husband. After an argument with his fellow tenants, Oren makes it a point to yell through her window that he loved his wife through terminal cancer to the very end, and now, he’s all used up.
And like that, the seeds for emotional change have been tossed to the soil. All that’s needed is a surprise player to melt his heart. And so it goes.
The Greg Kinnear character from As Good As It Gets gets split into two separate characters who will help make Oren able to love a woman again: Oren’s son, Luke (Scott Shepherd), and Luke’s daughter, Sarah (Sterling Jerins). Like Kinnear, Luke has some daddy issues. But not because he’s gay. Because he’s a former heroin addict. But the person who’ll make Oren (and Leah) take a little road trip is Sarah. See, Luke is going to jail. Not for anything drug related. Because he blew the whistle on his investment boss. So Oren will learn that he’s a good, dependable guy now.
Luke dumps Sarah on Oren’s doorstep (with the Rottweiler that Oren shot with a paintball gun for pooping on the lawn of his mansion). He doesn’t know where her junkie mom is. It has to be this way, because, y’know Marc Shaiman-scored heart-melting. Similarly, Leah takes Sarah in when Oren won’t, because, plot! She needs a grandmother. Actually, I suppose the child is the little dog from As Good As It Gets. She changes owners very easily after you feed her what she wants.
Through the help of the African American tenant (the parallels are absurd!), Oren is able to locate Sarah’s mother. And the trio go to visit her mother’s heroin den for Sarah’s 10th birthday. Of course, Oren finally decides that he should play grandpa and he also (finally) decides that Leah makes him want to be a better man.
Despite mocking the story parallels, And So It Goes is harmless. But it’s also not very funny and every stroke is predictable. Down to the sassy elderly woman (Frances Sternhagen, bless her, thanks for reminding us to re-watch Raising Cain) who talks about her son’s “willy” and the caterpillar to butterfly metamorphosis project that Sarah and Leah have undertaken, which, of course, is really the metamorphosis that Oren is taking before the audience’s eyes. But around the halfway point, Douglas and Keaton elevate themselves beyond appearing to just be picking up a paycheck. So if you just wanna see those stars do what they do, you might be pleased. (They do get some minor laughs from hooking-up.) But if you need a fix for 65-years plus romantic comedies, please check-out this year’s lovely Le Week-End from Roger Michell. You don’t even need to leave your house for that one. I suppose that I’m tossing out that recommendation to inform the reader that I’m not some young whippersnapper who’s opposed to elder love stories. And So It Goes is just a clumsy bore.
Which brings us to director Rob Reiner. Reiner (who was last seen yelling at Leonardo DiCaprio about being interrupted while watching episodes of The Equalizer in The Wolf of Wall Street) takes a role in this film as Artie. Artie is another harmless character who lives in this picturesque perfect place of upstate New York. He plays the piano for Leah. He attempts to court her, as well, but poor Artie, women prefer the asshole who needs help to see the beauty in the world. When Artie isn’t slipping on a slip and slide, he’s gently playing gentle piano tunes while Leah gently coos to the audience. He also gently nods and keeps his composure when she has to leave the stage in tears.
How nice Reiner appears on screen, just kinda nodding along to everything, makes me feel bad about picking on him. But one of our former great mainstream ears of comedy (This is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally …, The Princess Bride) has become incredibly tone deaf. For the past 15 years he’s just been nodding at the piano, smiling and playing harmless music.
When Sarah comes up with the idea of filming the caterpillar to butterfly metamorphosis, she tells Leah that they can shoot a little each day then edit it together into a movie. Leah asks if she knows how to do that. Andrus has her reply, “there’s an app for that” (which will probably be the go to technology explanation line for all elder screenwriters to come). And this is how Reiner’s newest, harmless film feels. Thrown together. Edited by someone who’s never edited. (Seriously, the cuts in this film are really bad; Keaton has one of the worst introductions to a character I’ve seen in a long time and continuity within a scene is a continual problem). And expecting applause merely for making something nice.
I will give Reiner points for not having the butterfly re-appear, flying above the lake for the final shot. I suppose he has some restraint. Or maybe that was a closing credits easter egg. If you find yourself blowing your nose through the entire credits, please let us know.
Brian Formo is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrianEmilFormo.
