St. Vincent

It’s virtually impossible not to enjoy a film in which Bill Murray plays a cantankerous old guy whose inner sweetness can’t help but shine through his crusty, cynical shell. This is the go-to movie role for this peerless comedic actor, and I’ll go see him play every variation on it even when the film is mawkish and contrived. In St. Vincent Murray plays a misanthropic, hedonistic, self-absorbed drunk named Vincent who has pretty much given up on life but still derives enough pleasure from it to keep getting out of bed. When a newly divorced mom (Melissa McCarthy) and her young son (Jaeden Lieberher) move in next door, he becomes the kid’s de facto babysitter, mentor, and father figure. Vincent seems as ill-suited to any of these roles as Naomi Watts would seem for the part of the pregnant Russian whore Vincent hangs around with and occasionally employs. But this is a feel-good Hollywood fable and Vincent turns out to be the ideal guy for this young kid to meet up with, just as Watts is able to make her broad stereotype of a character both credible and amusing. It’s also nice to see that McCarthy can play a straight, understated role where she’s not desperately carrying the entire film on the strength of her anything-for-a-laugh comic aesthetic.

Writer/Director Theodore Melfi, in his first feature, crafts a script that dutifully follows all the rules of screenwriting 101 but never rises above the fabricated formulas and obvious emotional manipulation of that approach. Nothing ever gets messy or unsafe in this picture, and the toothless obstacles faced by the various characters pose no real threat or heartache for any of them. Therefore the film never feels truthful. Murray’s performance however is messy and unpredictable--even his New York accent is all over the place. His lets do whatever we want on a given day approach to the role gives this somewhat saccharine material just enough bite so that we can swallow it without gagging.  Melfi structures his story with solid, if predictable, scenes and characters that handily carry his simple themes and subtext. It all builds to the type of climax we’ve come to expect in a film like this (think Little Miss Sunshine, About a Boy, or The Guilt Trip). It’s a credit to Murray, Lieberher, and Melfi that they go for the subtle emotions of this ending and don’t give in to its potentially overwhelming sentimentality. And if the movie does loose you with its heartstring-tugging climax, the perfectly downplayed end credit sequence should win you back.