Summary
In this spiritual successor to Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola maintains an arm’s length and intangible quality while making use of a talented cast.
In the almost two decades since Sofia Coppola‘s Lost in Translation, many aspects of that second feature have permeated her work. While she has effortless slid into period drama (Marie Antoinette) and Southern Gothic (The Beguiled), this latest feature is arguably the strongest thematic follow-up to her most commercially successful film.
ON THE ROCKS introduces us to the seemingly happy married couple Laura (Rashida Jones) and Dean (Marlon Wayans). As writer Laura works from home with the kids, she begins to suspect that Dean’s unromantic hours are signs of an extramarital affair.
Things take a dramatic and often comedic shift when Laura consults her eccentric, charming and impulsive father Felix (Bill Murray), due partly to his parallel past. Having left her mother for another woman, and stuck in a state of perpetual flirtation ever since, he immediately suspects the worst in Dean. The father and daughter duo journey up and down New York to find the truth.
Coppola regularly holds us at arm’s length, and her understated ambiguity is one of her greatest strengths as a filmmaker. From The Virgin Suicides onwards, there’s always been a weight to those moments between the ones she chooses to show us on screen. Yet here it feels like one step too far removed, and lands with a minor tonal imbalance that doesn’t seem to decide on an audience – or subject for that matter.
Often more broadly comic than her previous outings, the comedy of misadventure works solidly when Murray appears in the second act. This is when the loose “plot” properly begins, with Murray playing a variation on his own urban legend: randomly appearing at parties, exercising privilege over cops, and caring very little about societal norms.
Re-teaming with The Beguiled cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd, ON THE ROCKS in beautifully shot, casting New York (and later Mexico) in the most sanitised series of clean lines imaginable. As the pair wander the streets, it plays out like a lighter version of Lost in Translation, albeit with a female lead that at least has some of her own agency this time.
Like many of Coppola’s films, there’s an intangible quality that either stays with you or dissipates the morning after. Here I am less than a week after first seeing the film and large parts are slipping from my mind like a dream you can’t quite place. It’s a film that ostensibly confident in doing what it does, although we’re left wondering who it’s doing it for.
2020 | US | DIRECTOR: Sofia Coppola | WRITER: Sofia Coppola | CAST: Bill Murray Rashida Jones Marlon Wayans | DISTRIBUTOR: A24, Palace Cinemas (AUS), AppleTV+| RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 2 October 2020 (Theatrical), 23 October 2020 (Apple TV+)
