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HOME AGAIN (2017)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I watched "Home Again" with the pretense that it was nothing more than a garden variety rom-com with Reese Witherspoon walking through a well-traveled path of cliches with more than the usual music-video montages. Every move would be anticipated, every moment calculated to its zenith point. What is different from the norm is watching the high energy of Reese Witherspoon who clearly is better than the stale mediocrity written for her.

I suppose there is potential here for an interior decorator and mother of two daughters (not to mention the daughter of a famous fictional Cassavetes-like film director), Alice (Witherspoon), having an affair with an ambitious twentysomething film director, Harry (Pico Alexander). What I was not keen on was watching this souffle of a film director bring his two filmmaking buddies to live in Alice's guest house! That plot point by the way is about as nervy and messy as the film gets. Alice's daughters are adorable, I suppose, yet unmemorable. The two buddies, George (an ambitious screenwriter) and Teddy (an ambitious actor), start participating in Alice's daily activities, including picking up the daughters from school and theatre rehearsals, cooking meals, etc. What are we watching here? What about the romantic fling between Alice and Harry who walks around shirtless on occasion? This fling is so devoid of heat or romantic sparks that it is difficult to see any attraction other than sexual (which, of course, this being a PG-13 flick, the sex is minimal to almost nonexistent).

I must wonder about Alice's philandering father, a film director no doubt modeled on the late John Cassavetes. Why is this subplot given short-shrift? Even Candice Bergen who plays Alice's mother looks a lot like Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes's wife. Considering we have three budding filmmakers living in Alice's house (formerly her father's), why not stir the imagination about their filmmaking interests since Alice's father is one of their inspirations without focusing on old sitcom setups?

The movie is like a parade of moments we have seen a million times before. "Home Again" has no consistent unifying motion - it is a series of photo shoots where every actor looks prettified beyond belief thanks to lighting that comes from 10,000 watt bulbs. The dialogue is stale at best (a confrontation between Alice and her boss is handled like a sitcom situation without the laugh track) with no real interest in personality, depth or spontaneity. Witherspoon (and Michael Sheen who briefly appears as her ex-husband) give this movie a lift but it needs more than a crane - it needs a new construction crew.