Dinklage, Tomei can’t save Miller’s embarrassing misstep
Twenty-one years ago, writer/director Rebecca Miller won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for her drama Personal Velocity. Other well-received films followed, including her last film, Arthur Miller: Writer, a 2017 HBO documentary about her famous father. She returns now with She Came to Me, her first narrative feature since 2015’s terrific Maggie’s Plan, and, given her past successes, the results are disappointing.
On paper, the film’s plot no doubt sounded charming enough to green light the picture, with its echoes of Woody Allen’s best angsty, New York relationship dramas. Struggling with writer’s block, Steven, a depressed opera composer (Peter Dinklage) meets forthright tugboat captain and self-described “romance addict” Katrina (Oscar winner Marisa Tomei) who inspires him creatively, even as she throws his life into chaos. Meanwhile, those in Steven’s orbit experience their own problems, including his psychiatrist wife Patricia (Anne Hathaway) and his teenage step-son Julian (Evan Ellison).
On screen, though, Miller’s story runs into plot and tonal issues. The picture can’t seem to decide whether it’s a farcical comedy or a realistic drama. It exudes a fantastical, fairy-tale feel that never quite fits the unfolding action. The film’s failings aren’t the fault of the cast, who all act as if they’re in a much better film than they actually are. Tomei and Dinklage have palpable chemistry, and Hathaway does wonders with a character whose defining obsessive-compulsive trait evolves from quirky to pathological.
But too many subplots with ridiculously contrived connections bog down the film. Case in point: after the film’s opening scene, another scene with totally different characters begins that feels so out of nowhere and so disjointed from what precedes it that I literally stopped watching my screener and double checked it to make sure I hadn’t mistakenly received a series of shorts. Storylines involving Patricia and Steven’s housekeeper Magdalena (Joanna Kulig), her rigid Civil War-reenacting husband Trey (Brian d’Arcy James), and Magdalena’s daughter Tereza (Harlow Jane) meander and weave into the other narrative threads in ways that feel overly coincidental and unbelievable.
A plot point that’s icky at worst and questionable at best involves a 16-year-old girl getting married in order to solve a legal problem that any half-awake viewer can see has a host of other more tenable solutions. Confusing time jumps are distracting, character motivations are superficial or left unexplored, and the film’s ending is one of the most patently implausible in recent memory.
The entire production is a huge misstep from a filmmaker who previously showed much promise. What’s worse is that Miller somehow convinced Bruce Springsteen to pen the song that plays over the ending credits (titled “Addicted to Romance” in a nod to Tomei’s character). “Streets of Philadelphia” this song is not, and I predict no second Oscar in the Boss’s future for this embarrassing ditty. But then again, the film itself is unlikely to garner any awards, so Bruce shouldn’t feel too bad. Only Rebecca Miller should.
—————————-
She Came to Me opens today at Bay Area theaters.
