Reese Witherspoon Home Again Gold Rings

To paraphrase Thomas Wolfe, you shouldn't go to "Home Again." Despite the powerhouse presence of Reese Witherspoon, this limp little midlife crunch comedy leaves out the comedy and the crisis, and it certainly never comes to life.

Writer-director Hallie Meyers-Shyer — the daughter of filmmakers Nancy Meyers (who produced) and Charles Shyer — seems to be channeling her mother's films "Something's Gotta Give" and "It's Complicated" with a portrait of a adult female of a certain historic period torn between a younger lover and a disappointing husband. But an inescapable shroud of blandness covers everything in the movie: the characters, the relationships, the cinematography (by the great Dean Cundey), even the Witherspoon character'southward Very Nice House (another primal element to Meyers-Shyer's parents' work).

Alice Kinney (Witherspoon) decamps to her babyhood home in Los Angeles, two precocious daughters in tow, when her marriage to music mogul Austen (Michael Sheen) starts falling autonomously. That domicile is an blusterous, enormous compound (complete with pool and guest house) once purchased past Alice's late father, a 1970s director of the rebels-on-the-backlot schoolhouse. (Perhaps titling the film "Sweet Dwelling house Bel Air" would have lacked that sure something.)

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Attempting to get her interior design business off the ground — despite the fact that her own domicile has all the warmth and personality of a model habitation — Alice is knocked for a loop during her drunken 40th birthday commemoration, when she meets handsome young director Harry (Pico Alexander, "Armed services"). Harry, his screenwriter brother George (Jon Rudnitsky, "Saturday Nighttime Live"), and their actor pal Teddy (Nat Wolff, "Paper Towns") had a striking curt at SXSW, merely while their agents dither over getting the feature made, they find themselves without a identify to live in Los Angeles.

After they crash at Alice'southward following a boozy night, Alice's mom Lillian (Candice Bergen) is won over past the boys, specially since they glowingly recall Lillian's glory days as a 1970s cult film star. So the fellas motility into the guest house, Alice embarks on a fling with the much-younger Harry, and Austen'due south hackles are raised enough that he flies cross-country in an try to win his wife back.

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Meyers-Shyer may be rom-com royalty, but none of her complications here ring true. For starters, information technology seems unlikely that a woman like Alice, who grew up the daughter of a film legend and surrounded by the pic business, wouldn't have spent her entire life fending off wannabes like Harry and company. And for her big cease, Meyers-Shyer digs out the "gotta get to a kid's school play on fourth dimension" finale that is one of the creakiest tropes of modern moviemaking.

"Home Again" too operates in a stultifyingly white chimera: the only characters of color with speaking parts are a generic amanuensis and a blazingly stereotypical Indian motel clerk. The pic even throws in Lake Bell as a selfish, vapid socialite merely to brand Alice's universe of privilege and wealth seem somehow abode-spun.

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Witherspoon brings all of her picture-star moxie to play in a office that never comes together on the screen since it isn't on the page; at that place's just no substance or specificity to Alice. (Or to her Greek chorus of wine-chugging pals, another lift from the Nancy Meyers playbook.) Nosotros've seen Sheen play this same charming bastard multiple times now, and Bergen scores the film's one genuine express joy with a delightfully dry line reading.

While Rudnitsky and Wolff mostly coast on charisma, Alexander's sheer vapidity actively undermines the moving-picture show. So much could be forgiven if Harry were so charming that Alice would exist helpless before his magnetism, merely he's such a blank, douchey bro that her affection for him really reflects poorly on her.

Sadly, even fans of Nancy Meyers' legendary picture show kitchens will be disappointed by the 1 on display here, although perhaps that's a perfect metaphor for a film that's so dramatically malnourished.

xi Highest-Grossing Movies Directed past Women, From 'What Women Want' to 'Captain Curiosity' (Photos)

Take a wait at which films directed or co-directed past women are on this listing, unadjusted for inflation, according to Comscore.
Paramount
Universal
Summit Entertainment
20th Century Fox
7. Dauntless" (2012")
Directors: Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman
Domestic gross: $237.iii million
Pixar/Getty Images
Dreamworks SKG
5. "The Matrix Reloaded" (2003)
Director: Lily Wachowski and Lana Wachowski (billed as Wachowski Bros.)
Domestic gross: $281.5 million
Warner Bros.
Disney
3. "Wonder Woman" (2017)
Manager: Patty Jenkins
Domestic gross: $412.6 million
Warner Bros.
two. "Helm Marvel" (2019)

Managing director: Anna Boden and Ryan Chip
Domestic gross: $426.8 million

Marvel
1. "Frozen Ii" (2019)

Directors: Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee
Domestic gross: $477.4 million

Disney