Director: Kogonada
Cast: Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Might have missed it, too, if it hadn’t been for a more-charming-than-average trailer, I might have missed it altogether.
Did I Like It: To paraphrase Bart Simpson*, after he saw Naked Lunch (1991), “I can think of at least four things wrong with that title.”
Unfortunately, whatever charm the film had at its disposal was spent in that aforementioned trailer. Even in the context of the full film, the one moment where a character says the misplaced-in-time Sarah (Robbie) looks like she’s forty, plays less funny and more like a line meant for a different actress.
Robbie and Farrell seem to be vaguely embarrassed by the film happening around them, as if they both understand they have to allow for a down project after their recent highs in Barbie (2023) and The Penguin and act for our patience while the rest of their career calibrates in front of our eyes.
A bland rebound project might register on the mind as a tepid non-event, if it weren't for the fact that the supporting cast is utterly wasted. Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Kevin Kline can each single-handedly raise films beyond where they might have otherwise been. Here, they just show up and have a mildly quirky air about them, while unfortunately neglecting to have anything funny to say or do. There’s a different cut of this film somewhere that is probably just as uneven in pacing and tone, and is ultimately still a small, tepid, reasonably photographed circular trip, but it would at least have been a bit funnier.
*I thought I may have gone to this well before in a review, and searching the reviews, I apparently did it in a recent review for Night Editor (1946). In retrospect, I mean it far more here than I did then. Ah, well. There is at least some risk of repeating oneself over nearly 1000 reviews.