On the Rocks (2020)
The affluently arty Manhattan setting, the fragile romance of Chet Baker singing “I Fall in Love Too Easily” in the opening scene, that certain lightness of tone… On the Rocks is like a film Woody Allen might make if he were 30 years younger and still leading a charmed life. However, while channeling the casual sophistication and smart humor of Allen’s best films, writer-director Sofia Coppola uses the model to tell her own story. On the Rocks is romantic comedy from a woman’s perspective.
Coppola guides the narrative with a steady editorial hand and clear eyes for the busyness of parenthood and the emotional valleys of marriage. She moves elegantly from Laura (Rashida Jones) and Dean’s (Marlon Wayans) fancy-dress wedding night to morning in their toy strewn apartment five years later. He’s late for work and she’s busy getting their daughters ready for school and pre-school.
Vague unease over their marriage crystalizes suddenly when Laura, unpacking Dean’s suitcase after one of his increasingly frequent business trips, discovers another woman’s toiletries. She represses her mortification with a smile. Of course, it’s nothing. She accepts his explanation, but the stale scent of doubt lingers.
Dad encourages her suspicion. An eccentric old rake and unapologetic womanizer, Felix (Bill Murray) holds that all married men will behave as he did with her mother if given opportunity. Monogamy is impossible, men aren’t “wired that way” he insists; men evolved seeking younger women to perpetuate survival of their line he continues, quoting catchphrases from the techno-speak and evolutionary biology beloved by pseudo-intellectuals. But Felix has a romantic side, revealed by his inveterate humming of the theme from the 1944 film Laura, and he’s a hell of a lot of fun.
A resourceful actor, Jones’ expressive face responds easily to every moment, registering doubt and sadness, irritation, resolution and joy. However, Murray seizes control of most scenes with comedic flair, given wide scope by many marvelously funny scenes. When pulled over by police after a wild ride in his classic but ill-repaired sports car, he not only talks his way out of a ticket but enlists the officers in giving his sputtering vehicle a push to get it going. Throughout his life, Felix shaped the wet clay of reality in the image of his own impulses. Will he finally be proven wrong as he puts private eyes on Dean’s trail and stakes out his son-in-law’s offices party with Fionna—the alleged love interest—with Laura at his side and tins of caviar for refreshment?
Coppola had a good start to be sure as the daughter of Hollywood royalty but has made good on all the advantages she was given through a diverse and largely successful directorial career whose settings ranged from the Civil War to Marie Antoinette, from middle class Detroit through Manhattan apartments where Cy Twombly keeps company with Edouard Manet. On the Rocks glides with slippered feet across scenes, catching particular moments of parenting as Laura shows her daughter how to reach for the elevator button as well as snippets of smart uptown conversation. On the Rocks is also linked by music from an earlier epoch (Chet Baker is heard again on the rueful “I Get Along Without You Very Well”) and the running gag of a “friend” from day school, a flustered fellow mom who maintains a fountain of psychobabble on the emotional travails of contemporary relationships.
On the Rocks is streaming on Apple TV+.
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