[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Down]
In theaters Friday, October 6th
Who are these people? Do tugboat captains and opera composers and psychotherapists and Civil War reenactors mingle in an exclusive Manhattan social tidepool the rest of the world doesn’t know about? She Came to Me wants to live in that world, eating its comedy cake while having its hard-hitting drama, too: the results of which are spotty at best.
Steven (Peter Dinklage) is an opera composer with writer’s block and social anxiety whose therapist-turned-wife, Patricia (Anne Hathaway), forces him out of his depressed exile and onto a solo dog walk one morning. This excursion leads to a chance encounter with a tugboat captain, Katrina (Marisa Tomei), who is successful in simultaneously seducing Steven and clearing up his creative logjam. Meanwhile, Patricia’s freshly minted 18-year-old son is falling for the 16-year-old daughter of the family’s cleaning lady, Magdalena (Joanna Kulig), who is living with Trey (Brian d’Arcy James): a secretly racist stenographer/historical cosplayer.
She Came to Me flirts with the quirky during the inevitable confrontation between Steven and Katrina following the premiere of the opera inspired by their encounter yet is quick to abandon whimsy when shifting back to the Trey storyline. Magdalena views her daughter’s relationship with Patricia’s son as a normal, consensual relationship between two kids just over a year apart while Trey sees it as statutory rape. The fact that he isn’t wrong, but is driven by a not so subtle racist bent, throws a moral wrench into proceedings that is never quite reckoned with. It also derails any fun that the audience might be having: something Patricia’s sudden descent into rabid Catholicism doesn’t help with at all.
Writer/director Rebecca Miller does a good job setting all these characters up in the first act, imbuing each with identity and pathos by way of some very efficient writing. A brief conversation between Patricia and her son about the circumstances surrounding her late husband’s departure prior to his death tell the complete story of that marriage in less than a minute. Likewise, the opening sequence of Steven weaving through a pack of well-wishers and their private comments about his recent struggles make quick work of the world building that would take a lesser screenwriter a dozen pages to unfold.
What’s more, the characters are all constructed in a way that makes sense for them in this world. She Came to Me establishes Patricia’s O.C.D.-cleaning compulsion early on, so her shift towards public service via the Church does make sense as a natural transition for the character (cleaning up bigger and bigger messes). Just because it makes sense from a logical or theoretical angle doesn’t make it good, though. None of these people, except the two genius teenagers, have relatable problems, and all of them exist in a world a regular audience wouldn’t recognize.
This in itself isn’t a problem; after all, people watch movies about royalty and aliens and dragons all the time. It’s just that none of the people in She Came to Me allow the audience to identify with or root for them, which in turn keeps anyone watching this at arm’s length. Indeed, the options are a murder’s row of privilege, problematic, prudish, and predatory. Or maybe this review is just being too harsh…after all, this movie has all kinds of characters people cherish spending time with, like a rich and famous composer, a racist Luddite, a clean-crazy Catholic, a manic pixie dream girl, and a sympathetic statutory rapist.
What’s not to love?
To Miller’s credit, the film moves well and is anchored by several strong performances: Kulig’s and d’Arcy James’ in particular. As ridiculous as all of these characters and their drama are/is, the audience is never pulled out of this world, and it is a credit to the cast that this is the case. DP Sam Levy has experience shooting in New York (Lady Bird, Frances Ha, etc), and that comfort is reflected in the ease with which Manhattan lands as a character, here. Miller and Levy aren’t afraid to pull the camera in close to reflect the isolation or turmoil of a moment (for example, Steven’s first trip to Katrina’s boat), and these decisions serve the movie well.
It just doesn’t mesh, kind of like a recipe with quality ingredients yet no commonalities (and cooked poorly to boot). It looks good and is stocked with quality performances, yet nothing about She Came to Me comes across as relatable or actionable. These aren’t particularly good people and whether it is about cheating on your wife, breaking up a marriage, emotionally isolating your husband, sleeping with your 16-year-old girlfriend as a legal adult, or pursuing a racist vendetta, there aren’t a lot of actions for an audience to get behind, here. Sure, she may have come to him: but maybe the movie should not have come to us.
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
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