Leslie Mann Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Cha Cha Real Smooth,’ starring Cooper Raiff, Dakota Johnson, Leslie Mann, Brad Garrett, Vanessa Burghardt and Evan Assante

January 24, 2022

by Carla Hay

Cooper Raiff and Dakota Johnson in “Cha Cha Real Smooth” (Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute)

Directed by Cooper Raiff

Culture Representation: Taking place in New Jersey and briefly in New Orleans, the comedy/drama “Cha Cha Real Smooth” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A recent college graduate struggles to find the right career path for himself as he falls in love with a divorced mother who is engaged to a lawyer.

Culture Audience: “Cha Cha Real Smooth” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in post-college coming-of-age movies.

Leslie Mann, Cooper Raiff and Brad Garrett in “Cha Cha Real Smooth” (Photo courtesy of Apple TV+)

Filmmaker/actor Cooper Raiff is in danger of typecasting himself in his movies as a dorky man-child, but “Cha Cha Real Smooth” has enough charm about awkward romances and life transitions to make up for some of the movie’s annoying self-awareness. The comedy/drama “Cha Cha Real Smooth” is the second feature film written and directed by Raiff, who has repeated certain themes and character scenarios in his two movies so far. “Cha Cha Real Smooth” had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

Raiff’s first feature film was the comedy/drama “Shithouse,” which was supposed to have its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, but all of SXSW was cancelled as an in-person event due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 SWSW Film Festival still awarded jury prizes, and “Shithouse” received the festival’s top award: Best Narrative Feature. Later that year, “Shithouse” had a limited theatrical release and became available on home video, with very little fanfare, although the movie got mostly positive reviews.

In “Shithouse,” Raiff plays a homesick Texas “mama’s boy” named Alex Malmquist, who’s a freshman at an unnamed Los Angeles university, where he meets and falls in love with his dorm’s resident assistant named Maggie Hill (played by Dylan Gelula), who plays “hard to get” in their relationship. In “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” Raiff plays Andrew, a 22-year-old “mama’s boy” and recent Tulane University graduate, who moves back in with his unnamed mother (played by Leslie Mann) and stepfather Greg (played by Brad Garrett) in an unnamed city in New Jersey. Andrew falls in love with a divorced mother in her 30s named Domino (played by Dakota Johnson), who plays “hard to get” in their relationship. And in Domino’s case, she really is “hard to get”: She’s engaged to a workaholic lawyer named Joseph (played by Raúl Castillo), who travels a lot for his job.

Just like in “Shithouse,” the tone and pace of “Cha Cha Real Smooth” have meandering qualities that work well in many parts of the movie and not-so-well in other parts. And once again, Raiff plays a loner protagonist pining for a love interest who is less emotionally available than he is. In many ways, “Shithouse,” which is a very conversation-driven movie, seems like a college campus version of director Richard Linklater’s 2005’s romance movie “Before Sunrise,” starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. “Cha Cha Real Smooth” widens the scope of the protagonist’s world beyond a college campus and into the “real world” of a young adult living with parents while trying to find a full-time job.

Just like Linklater does in his movies about young people in America, Raiff has his young protagonists feeling a lot of yearning and discontent over how they’re living their lives, and the filmmaker blends this angst with party scenes and some goofy comedy. Unlike Linklater, Raiff is an actor who makes himself the star of the movies that he writes and directs. “Cha Cha Real Smooth” has more emotional depth and more character development than “Shithouse” does, with some hard-hitting real-life issues that are handled with sensitivity. However, there are moments in “Cha Cha Real Smooth” where Raiff’s ego is on display, because multiple times in the movie, different women tell the character he plays how adorable he is.

Andrew studied marketing at Tulane, and he hasn’t really figured out what career path he wants to take. His college sweetheart Maya (played by Amara Pedroso Saquel) has a Fulbright Scholarship to do graduate studies in Barcelona, Spain. An early scene in the movie shows Andrew and Maya at a party, shortly before graduating from Tulane. Maya asks Andrew what his post-graduation plans are, and he half-jokingly says that he wants to go to Barcelona. The expression on Maya’s face seems to say, “That’s not going to happen. And I don’t want it to happen.”

Andrew then says he’s thinking about finding a job at a non-profit. The movie then fast-forwards to Andrew, after he has graduated from Tulane. He’s working behind the counter at a fast-food place called Meat Stix, which sells meat on sticks, such as corndogs. Obviously, it’s a job that he didn’t expect to have after graduating from Tulane. Andrew’s graduation is never shown. It’s also never shown how Maya and Andrew decided to define their relationship before she moved to Barcelona.

But it should come as no surprise that Andrew thinks that he and Maya are more committed to each other than they really are. While he’s in Barcelona, Maya won’t answer his messages. And when Andrew checks Maya’s social media, he finds out that she’s been hanging out with a new guy, who’s probably her new boyfriend. Andrew soon meets another woman who preoccupies his thoughts.

One of the repeated themes of “Shithouse” and “Cha Cha Real Smooth” is that the protagonist has a tendency to fall for women who are older (even it’s by a few years), more experienced in dating, and/or more emotionally mature. The opening scene of “Cha Cha Real Smooth” foreshadows that Andrew has this preference, when he’s shown at 12 years old at a school dance. In this flashback scene, Andrew (played by Javien Mercado) has a crush on a woman in her 20s named Bella (played by Kelly O’Sullivan), one of the dance chaperones.

Andrew confesses to his mother that he’s in love with Bella. “I know she’s old, but I think she loves me too,” Andrew says. After the dance, Andrew asks Bella out on a date. She lets him down gently by telling him: “This is the most flattered I’ve ever felt, but I’m old.” A dejected Andrew pouts in the back seat of his parents’ car during their drive home, with his parents in the front seat, and his father (played by Chris Newman) driving. As the car is in motion, Andrew’s mother climbs in the back seat to comfort Andrew. Andrew’s father is never seen or mentioned in the movie again.

It’s open to interpretation why Andrew’s biological father is not discussed in the movie. He could be dead or divorced from Andrew’s mother. Either way, he’s definitely not in the family’s life anymore, and Andrew’s mother is now married to Greg, who’s an executive at a pharmaceutical company. In “Shithouse,” the father of the protagonist was dead, and the protagonist’s mother also didn’t have a name.

And just like in “Shithouse,” the protagonist of “Cha Cha Real Smooth” has a younger sibling who adores and looks up to him. In “Shithouse,” it’s a younger sister. In “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” it’s a younger brother. Andrew’s younger brother David (played by Evan Assante), who’s about 12 or 13 years old, is a good kid who’s insecure about how to date girls. It’s implied that David and Andrew have the same biological father, because they both call Greg by his first name, not “Dad.”

Andrew and Greg dislike each other, which is apparently how it’s been between them for years. They don’t get in violent fights, but they find ways to insult each other. Andrew is more blatant about it than Greg is. Greg isn’t impressed that Andrew doesn’t really know what he wants to do with his life. Andrew thinks that Greg is too uptight and judgmental. Andrew’s mother tries to keep the peace between Andrew and Greg, but she has her own issues: She happens to be medically diagnosed as bipolar.

Many of David’s schoolmates are Jewish boys who are bar mitzvah age, and he gets invited to these bar mitzvahs. It’s why Andrew, David, their mother and Greg are at a bar mitzvah, where Andrew first sees Domino. It’s “attraction at first sight” for Andrew. Domino is with her daughter Lola (played by Vanessa Burghardt), who is about 14 or 15 years old and somewhere on the autism spectrum. When Andrew finds out that Domino and Lola are mother and daughter, and not sisters, he’s amazed because he thinks Domino looks too young to be the mother of a teenager.

Andrew thinks the party DJ isn’t doing a very good job of getting people on the dance floor, so he requests that the DJ play Lipps Inc.’s 1979 hit “Funky Town.” And the next thing you know, Andrew is leading a group dance to “Funky Town.” Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

Expect to see several dance scenes showing close-ups of Andrew bopping up and down, like he’s on a pogo stick, sometimes in slow-motion. He’s not a very good dancer, but that’s the point, because Andrew is so unapologetically dorky that it’s supposed to be endearing. Too bad Raiff has to constantly point this out by having women in the movie repeatedly tell Andrew how adorable he is.

Andrew will be going to some more bar mitzvahs in this movie, once he finds out he has a knack for choosing the right dance songs, mingling with party guests, and making sure that people at a party have a good time. Andrew introduces himself to Domino and Lola at the bar mitzvah where he first sees them. Andrew and Domino then mildly flirt each other. Andrew also develops an immediate rapport with Lola, who is socially withdrawn and is treated like an outcast by the other kids at the party. Because of her autism, Lola has been held back a few grades, so she’s a few years older than her classmates.

At one point in the evening, Domino bets Andrew $300 that he can’t get Lola to dance on the dance floor. Of course, Andrew wins the bet. It’s the beginning of Domino’s attraction to Andrew. She doesn’t tell him right away that she’s engaged to be married, but eventually she does tell him on another night. The movie also makes a point of mentioning that Domino and Andrew are not Jewish, but they keep seeing each other at bar mitzvahs.

Meanwhile, after the party where Andrew and Domino have met, about five mothers surround Andrew and tell him how adorable he is and that they want him to be a DJ at their children’s upcoming bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs. And that’s how Andrew starts his own party DJ business, which he calls Jig Conductor. Andrew enlists David to do a homemade promotional video for Jig Conductor, but the video doesn’t go as planned, in one of the movie’s contrived comedy scenes.

Greg is skeptical about Andrew being a party DJ as a job. When Greg asks Andrew how much Andrew will get paid for this type of work, Andrew sarcastically answers, “I think they said just under what an unhappy pharmaceutical exec makes.” Andrew makes other verbal digs at Greg in other scenes where Andrew essentially tells Greg that he thinks just because Greg is miserable, Greg doesn’t have to make Andrew miserable too.

Andrew sees Domino and Lola again at his first bar mitzvah job as a party DJ, but this event doesn’t go so well. First, Andrew gets fired before the party ends because he was rude to a rabbi who was at the party, and Andrew got involved in a fight with a boy who was bullying Lola. Second, something happens to Domino at the party which is a harrowing experience for her. Andrew finds out and comes to her rescue, which further deepens their growing bond.

Domino then hires Andrew to be a babysitter for Lola. The movie has several sweet-natured scenes of Andrew and Lola becoming friends. Lola is intelligent, kind and very socially awkward. Before Andrew comes into her life, her only friend was her beloved pet hamster Jerry. Lola is very honest, and Andrew likes her candor. Andrew also feels protective of Lola because he knows that she gets bullied by her schoolmates.

Domino and Andrew inevitably become closer too. When Andrew and Domino kiss for the first time, Domino is the one who makes the first move. But what about Joseph? He’s in Chicago a lot because of a client’s lawsuit. Andrew eventually meets Joseph, who is polite but somewhat emotionally closed-off and not very talkative. Joseph remains a mystery throughout the entire movie, with nothing really revealed about him except that he’s a very busy lawyer.

The rest of the movie is about Andrew falling in love with Domino, who sends mixed signals about how far she wants the relationship to go with him. At one point, Domino tells Andrew, “I feel very comfortable with you. I don’t know why.” Later in the movie, Domino says to Andrew: “You know what you look like now? You look like the sweetest person ever.”

However, there are some red flags that Andrew wants to ignore, such as Domino telling him that she would like to move to Chicago to start a new life and to possibly go to school to get her college degree. Domino says that Joseph would rather stay in New Jersey. (“Cha Cha Real Smooth” was actually filmed in Pennsylvania.) And there’s an age difference and lifestyle difference between Andrew and Domino that they don’t really discuss until much later in the movie.

Andrew takes the way that Domino gets emotionally close to him as a sign that Domino and Joseph are having problems in their relationship. Andrew doesn’t seem too concerned with finding out how long Domino and Joseph have been together, or when they plan to get married. Andrew doesn’t ask these questions, but Domino is also somewhat guarded about certain things in her life. She eventually tells Andrew that she has abandonment issues because her ex-husband (Lola’s father) left her and Lola. Domino also reveals that she’s been depressed ever since she was a child.

“Cha Cha Real Smooth” gets its title from a line in DJ Casper’s 2000 hit “Cha Cha Slide,” a novelty tune that’s played in one of the movie’s bar mitzvah scenes. The movie has a few subplots, such as Andrew giving David romance advice because David has a crush on a classmate named Margaret (played by Brooklyn Ramirez), who might have a romantic interest in David too. Andrew also casually dates a former high school schoolmate named Macy (played by Odeya Rush), who was his crush in high school.

Maya isn’t too far from his mind, because Andrew confides in his mother that he’s saving his money to eventually go to Barcelona. Andrew claims his Barcelona trip has nothing to do with Maya, who’s been ignoring him, but Andrew’s mother looks like she doesn’t believe him. Andrew also applies for a job at a non-profit group called Hope Loves a Friend, which helps underprivileged and disabled kids.

“Cha Cha Real Smooth” has characters with disabilities or mental illnesses, which are issues that weren’t in “Shithouse.” These issues are handled in “Cha Cha Real Smooth” with mixed results. Lola isn’t depicted as an offensive stereotype of autism, but as a fully developed human being with clear thoughts and feelings. The scenes with Lola and Andrew are among the best in the movie.

However, the bipolar condition of Andrew’s mother seems like a plot device that’s never realistically shown or explored in a meaningful way. It’s mentioned a few times in the movie that Andrew’s mother has had recent “manic” episodes in public, but these manic episodes and her depression are never shown. Instead, her entire personality in the movie is as an even-tempered, supportive mother.

It’s as Raiff just wanted to tack on a “mental illness” description for the mother to make it seem like this movie is deeper than it really is. At Andrew’s job interview with Hope Loves a Friend, Andrew mentions that his mother is bipolar as a way to prove that he’s qualified for the job. Then, he blurts out a lie about another member of his family having a mental disability, then he promptly admits that it’s a lie. It’s a moment when the movie namechecks a disability for a cheap laugh, especially when viewers find out if Andrew got the job or not.

Domino is another person in Andrew’s life who’s had a long history of depression. And that part of her life and personality are shown in fleeting moments. Mostly, Domino seems like someone who doesn’t really think she’ll find true happiness, but she wants stability, which she thinks she can get in her relationship with Joseph. “Cha Cha Real Smooth” doesn’t seem to want to show anything realistic when it comes to the hardest things people with depression or bipolar disorder have to deal with in their everyday lives.

Andrew can be compassionate, but he can be self-absorbed in many ways. For example, when things in Andrew and Domino’s relationship aren’t going the way that Andrew hoped they would, he takes his anger and frustration out on his brother David. When David asks Andrew for some love-life advice, Andrew snaps at David and verbally insults him in a very mean-spirited way. It’s supposed to show how “human” Andrew is and that this “nice guy” isn’t so perfect.

The dialogue in this movie can sometimes be clunky, but there are also scenes where the dialogue is very realistic. Raiff, Burghardt and Assante stand out as giving believable performances. Johnson has played many coquettish types before, Mann has played many nurturing mothers before, and Garrett has played many grumpy characters before, so all three of these cast members don’t do much that’s new in this movie. It remains to be seen if Raiff is going to follow the Woody Allen path of filmmaking, by playing a version of himself in the movies where he’s the director, writer and protagonist star. Raiff seems capable of playing more than this type of neurotic lovelorn character, so it will be interesting to see if he can show more acting range in his future movies.

“Cha Cha Real Smooth” has some unanswered questions that aren’t really plot holes, but they indicate that the screenplay needed improving. Viewers might wonder: “What happened to Andrew’s father?” “If Lola is such an outcast at her school, why does she keep getting invited to these bar mitzvahs?” (Lola and Domino go to three of them during the course of the movie.) “How have Andrew and David been affected by their mother’s bipolar condition?” By throwing in all of the issues and not adequately addressing them all, “Cha Cha Real Smooth” looks like it bit off more than it could chew. There was a simple clarity about “Shithouse” that’s missing in “Cha Cha Real Smooth.”

“Cha Cha Real Smooth” is a series of scenes and vignettes that have just enough in each scene to resonate with viewers. Andrew is like a lot of recent college graduates who have to move back in with parents and who don’t have their entire lives figured out yet. He’s a flawed “nice guy” who likes to make people feel good about themselves, but he can also say mean and stupid things when he’s drunk. Raiff’s greatest strength as a filmmaker is showing these human frailties of people doing the best that they can to accept themselves in a world where they can get rejected and things don’t always go as planned.

UPDATE: Apple Studios will release “Cha Cha Real Smooth” in select U.S. cinemas and on Apple TV+ on June 17, 2022.

Review: ‘Blithe Spirit’ (2020), starring Dan Stevens, Leslie Mann, Isla Fisher and Judi Dench

April 1, 2021

by Carla Hay

Leslie Mann and Dan Stevens in “Blithe Spirit” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Blithe Spirit” (2020)

Directed by Edward Hall

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1937 in England and briefly in Los Angeles, the comedic film “Blithe Spirit” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with one black person and a few Indians) representing the middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Struggling with writer’s block, a novelist-turned-screenwriter is haunted by the ghost of his dead ex-wife, who plots to break up his marriage to his current wife.

Culture Audience: “Blithe Spirit” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the Noel Coward play on which the movie is based or the 1945 “Blithe Spirit” movie, but this remake is vastly inferior.

Pictured clockwise, from left to right, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Isla Fisher, Judi Dench, Dan Stevens and Emilia Fox in “Blithe Spirit” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

This remake of “Blithe Spirit” is like a meal that seems to have all the right ingredients, but it turns out to be dull and unappealing mush that will leave people with a bad taste in their mouths. Even though this comedic film (based on the Noel Coward play of the same name) has terrific and talented cast members who have done much better work elsewhere, this “Blithe Spirit” movie’s screenwriting and direction fall flat on almost every level. There are some movies that are so bad that they’re entertaining, and there are some movies that are so bad that they’re boring. Unfortunately, this “Blithe Spirit” remake falls into the latter category.

People watching this version of “Blithe Spirit” might already know about the critically acclaimed 1945 movie version of “Blithe Spirit,” directed by David Lean. This remake version of “Blithe Spirit, ” directed by Edward Hall, lacks much of the charm of the 1945 “Blithe Spirit.” The lethargic and simple-minded screenplay of this “Blithe Spirit” remake was written by Nick Morcroft, Meg Leonard and Piers Ashworth. (Morcroft and Leonard are two of the movie’s producers.)

The actors do the best that they can, but they strain for laughs that are few and far in between in this joyless story of a love triangle gone awry because of a vengeful ghost. In “Blithe Spirit,” which takes place in 1937, the love triangle consists of a writer who has a crumbling marriage to a socialite when he becomes haunted by the spirit of his dead ex-wife, who was his most important muse. The ghost of the ex-wife then causes all sorts of mischief in order for her ex-husband’s current marriage to fail.

In the “Blithe Spirit” remake, the person at the center of the love triangle is also the story’s protagonist: British writer Charles Condomine (played by Dan Stevens) is a successful crime novelist who has been hired by a major movie studio to write his first screenplay, which is based on one of his novels. Charles has been experiencing writer’s block, and he tries to hide his fear that he won’t finish the screenplay on time.

Charles’ loyal and adoring wife Ruth (played by Isla Fisher) tries to be as understanding as possible, but there’s an added layer of pressure for Charles to finish this screenplay: Ruth’s father Henry Mackintosh (played by Simon Kunz) is a high-ranking executive of the movie studio that has commissioned Charles to write the screenplay. Charles is writing a crime drama/thriller movie that the studio hopes to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock (played by Peter Rogers), a master filmmaker of suspenseful movies.

Other “celebrity cameos” in “Blithe Spirit” include appearances from Greta Garbo (played by Stella Stocker), Clark Gable (played by Jaymes Sygrove), filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille (played by Colin Stinton) and notorious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (played by Georgina Rich), with none of these cameos adding much impact to the story. These cameos happen when Charles visits the famed production facility Pinewood Studios in Iver, England, and when he goes to Hollywood.

You can tell already that the “Blithe Spirit” movie remake did not stay true to the original play and movie, which had a small cast of characters and a small number of locations. The “Blithe Spirit” movie remake overstuffs the story with too many characters and jumps around in too many places. It’s as if the filmmakers wanted to distract viewers with a bunch of gimmicky scenes that are new to this “Blithe Spirit” movie remake, as a smokescreen for the sad reality that this movie doesn’t have the verve of the original “Blithe Spirit.”

The vengeful ex-wife who comes back to haunt Charles is his first wife Elvira (played by Leslie Mann), who got divorced from Charles before she died in a horse-jumping competition. Elvira is supposed to be shrewish and seductive, so that when she reappears in Charles’ life, he has a hard time resisting her manipulations. In this “Blithe Spirit” remake, Elvira is American (she was British in the other versions), presumably because Mann, who is American in real life, couldn’t or wouldn’t do a British accent for the movie.

Mann has been typecast in several movies, because she usually plays a character who’s a mild-mannered suburban American mother. Mann has a sing-song tone to her speaking voice that sounds like she could be a kindergarten teacher. And so, movie audiences might find it hard to believe Mann in the role of a spiteful and homicidal ex-wife who doesn’t hesitate to plot the death of her rival Ruth.

The role of Elvira needed to be played by someone who is a more convincing femme fatale but who also has the talent to carry this role with comedic charisma. So although Mann is talented, she is miscast in this role because she doesn’t come across as the least bit dangerous throughout the movie. Stevens portrays Charles as an egotistical, insecure buffoon who won’t find much sympathy with viewers of this movie. Fisher has the most thankless role as Ruth, who’s supposed to be the “good wife,” but even Ruth’s patience gets tested by Charles’ erratic shenanigans.

At the beginning of “Blithe Spirit,” the passion has all but disappeared from Charles and Ruth’s nearly five-year marriage. (Ruth and Charles do not have children together, and neither did Charles and Elvira.) And now, Charles is stressed-out over finishing a screenplay that he has problems even starting. He doesn’t like distractions when he’s writing, so this need for isolation causes even more discontent and alienation in his marriage to Ruth.

Ruth notices Charles’ sullen mood over his writer’s block and says to him: “You’ve been commissioned to write a 90-page screenplay, not ‘War and Peace.’ I don’t see how it can be problematic to adapt a story you’ve already written.”

Ruth continues, “I’m sorry, Charles. I just don’t know how long I can go on like this, with you stuck in an imaginary world and me alone in the real one. I miss you. I miss us.” Charles replies, with a hint of guilt. “So do I.”

This “Blithe Spirit” remake tries to appeal to a modern audience by putting more sex and drugs in the story but without anything that’s too raunchy. Early on in the movie, it’s mentioned that part of the reason why Charles and Ruth’s marriage is faltering is because he has erectile dysfunction. Charles talks about it with his close friend Mr. Bradman (played by Julian Rhind-Tutt), a doctor who gives Charles some benzedrine pills that Bradman says should solve the problem. Charles is hesitant, but Bradman says he’s been taking the same pills and it’s done wonders for his energy and sex life.

And so, Charles takes benzedrine and suddenly has a burst of energy that catches Ruth off guard. He takes her on a bicycle ride in a wooded area and vigorously pedals as if he’s in contestant in a bike race. And later, Ruth is pleasantly surprised to find out that Charles is interested in reviving their sex life, and he’s a more enthusiastic lover than he was in recent months. There’s no explicit sex in the movie, but the sexual activity is either depicted in mild sex scenes or talked about in the story.

With Charles and Ruth’s marriage seemingly back on track to becoming happy again, they go on a double date with Bradman and his wife (played by Emilia Fox) to a theater stage show to see a well-known psychic named Madame Cecily Arcati (played by Judi Dench). The Bradmans don’t have first names in this version of “Blithe Spirit,” but they are called George and Violet in previous versions. Charles doesn’t really take this psychic/fortune teller show seriously and only goes out of slight amusement and curiosity.

Also in the audience are two of Charles and Ruth’s servants: maid Edith (played by Aimee-Ffion Edwards) and cook Edna (played by Michele Dotrice), who have the cheap seats down below, while the Condomines and the Bradfords have top-tier balcony tickets. Most of what Edith and Edna do in the movie is react to Charles’ increasingly unhinged state of mind the more that Elvira irritates him. Some of the other people who are seen in the Condomine house are the couple’s other friends who are written as vague characters who don’t have much to say and only show up when there’s a house party.

“Blithe Spirit” tries to infuse some slapstick comedy by having Madame Arcati fall from a rope during a levitating trick in front of the audience. This mishap leads to her being exposed as a fraud, which causes an uproar from audience members. Many of the people in the crowd demand refunds. It’s a rather unnecessary scene, unless you were really waiting your whole life to see a movie with a Judi Dench stunt double taking a humiliating tumble on stage.

While all this chaos is going on, Charles sneaks backstage to talk to Madame Arcati in her dressing room. He introduces himself as a crime writer and tells Madame Arcati: “Like me, you occasionally have to employ artistic license to entertain the masses.” Madame Arcati responds with a “poor me” tone of voice when she talks about her audiences: “They expect me to deliver a spectacle, a transcendental miracle, night after night.”

Madame Arcati is embarrassed over her fiasco performance, which caused her to lose money due to all the refunds. Her shame is somewhat alleviated when Charles gives her another job opportunity, albeit a temporary one. Charles asks Madame Arcati to do a private séance at his home. He tells her that he, his wife Ruth and “influential guests” will be attending the séance. Madame Arcati willingly obliges.

Charles is hoping that the séance will inspire ideas for his writing and and possibly help him get over his writer’s block. The Condomines and Bradfords don’t take the séance that seriously until some spooky things start happening. Madame Arcati says that the spirit in the room wants to contact Charles. And then, Madame Arcati convulses and the room’s French windows blow open.

Madame Arcati is visibly shaken when she leaves the house. However, the couples have a laugh over what happened. Ruth and Charles won’t be laughing when they find out that the séance has conjured up the spirit of Elvira, who doesn’t waste time in trying to wreck Charles and Ruth’s marriage. First, Elvira tries to drive Ruth crazy, and then Elvira turns to more devious methods to get Ruth out of Charles’ life.

While all of this is happening, Charles is the only one who can see Elvira’s ghost. And so, much of the contrived comedy in “Blithe Spirit” is about Charles talking to Elvira, but other people think he’s going crazy because he looks like he’s talking to himself. Another scenario that happens frequently is that Charles says something insulting to Elvira, but someone in the room thinks Charles is actually saying the insult to them. Tension and arguments then ensue.

Elvira can be maddening to Charles, but she also inspires him and gives him some of his best ideas. It should come as no surprise that Charles overcomes his writer’s block with Elvira’s help. However, Elvira wants credit for her contributions, and that leads to more conflicts between Charles and Elvira. And that’s apparently an excuse for this cringeworthy line to be in this movie, when Charles utters to Elvira: “What am I supposed to say? That I have a ghost writer?”

Charles has unresolved love/hate feelings toward Elvira, so there’s a lot of back-and-forth over whether or not he wants to save his marriage to Ruth or end it. Elvira makes it clear that she wants Charles all to herself. Does this movie really expect people to believe that Elvira’s can come fully back to life, not just as a vision that only Charles can see?

Yes, it does, because later in the story, Madame Arcati becomes the second person who can see the ghost of Elvira, and she has this declaration about Elivra’s spirit: “If the returning spirit feels welcome, it can gradually become physically substantial.” There are some catty showdowns between the main female characters in the movie, but no real suspense or compelling dialogue.

For example, this is the type of bland comment that Elvira gives when she tries to threaten Madame Arcati: “I’ll haunt you until the day I die!” For someone who’s supposed to be a great writer, Elvira can’t even say things that are very witty, due to the lackluster screenwriting for this movie.

The 1945 movie version of “Blithe Spirit” starred Rex Harrison as Charles Condomine; Constance Cummings as Ruth Condomine; Kay Hammond as Elvira Condomine; and Margaret Rutherford as Madame Arcati. There was a natural-looking rapport that the actors had with the dialogue that’s missing from this “Blithe Spirit” remake. Oftentimes, the actors in this “Blithe Spirit” remake give little pauses as if they’re expecting it to be filled by a laugh track. And the slapstick comedy in this remake isn’t that special.

This version of “Blithe Spirit” has unnecessary detours in the plot, including Madame Arcati going to the London Spiritual Alliance and asking national director Harry Price (played by James Fleet) for help. He refuses because she’s been suspended from the alliance because of the con job at the theater were the audience demanded refunds. The Harry Price character is an example of a new character that ends up being irrelevant to this story.

Madame Arcati is a widow who lives alone and talks to her dead husband Donald as if he were still alive. Donald is mentioned enough times that you just know that there’s a reason for it in this movie. Madame Arcati is written as a watered-down character that vacillates between being assertive and pathetic. It’s the kind of unchallenging, shallow role that Dench can do in her sleep. Viewers of this monotonous movie might also be put to sleep.

A scene that’s new to the remake is a prank that Elvira plays on Ruth, when Elvira spikes Ruth’s drink with Charles’ benzedrine during a party that the Condomines are having in their home. Ruth has no idea, of course, and she ends up getting high out of her mind, stripping to her underwear in front of the guests, and getting frisky with Charles in the bedroom during the party. There’s some ghostly voyeurism that Elvira has with Ruth and Charles, but it comes across as creepy, not hilarious.

The filmmakers of “Blithe Spirit” clearly wanted to make this a sexier version of the play and original movie, but they also wanted to keep the movie “family friendly.” And so, the result is a comedy that tries to be adult-oriented but is toned down to the point of blandness, in order for it not to be inappropriate for underage children. It’s as wishy-washy as Charles’ decision making in this love triangle.

Adding to the misfires in this version of “Blithe Spirit” is Simon Boswell’s annoying musical score that sounds like it was made for a TV sitcom, not a movie that’s supposed to take place in 1937. The reality is that “Blithe Spirit” is not the type of movie that’s going to appeal to underage kids anyway. And so, if the filmmakers wanted this “Blithe Spirit” to be sexier than previous versions, it should’ve just gone all in with some clever raunchiness and with a better-quality screenplay.

Movie audiences don’t mind remakes/reboots if these remakes/reboots bring a lot of fresh ideas while staying true to some of the basics that the original project had. Sadly for this version of “Blithe Spirit,” it wallows in stale concepts that wouldn’t even past muster in mediocre comedies made for television. It seems as if Charles Condomine’s writer’s block extended to this movie’s screenplay, which is lacking in the spark and wit that made the original “Blithe Spirit” (the play and the movie) such a treat.

IFC Films released “Blithe Spirit” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on February 19, 2021. The movie was released in New Zealand in 2020, and in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2021.

Review: ‘The Croods: A New Age,’ starring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Leslie Mann and Peter Dinklage

November 25, 2020

by Carla Hay

Clockwise, from top left: Sandy Crood (voiced by Kailey Crawford), Grug Crood (voiced by Nicolas Cage), Thunk Crood ( voiced by Clark Duke), Gran (voiced by Cloris Leachman), Eep Crood (voiced by Emma Stone) and Ugga Crood (voiced by Catherine Keener) in “The Croods: A New Age” (Image courtesy of DreamWorks Animation)

“The Croods: A New Age”

Directed by Joel Crawford

Culture Representation: The animated film sequel “The Croods: A New Age” features a cast of characters representing humans who live in a world somewhere between prehistoric and modern and where over-sized animals exist.

Culture Clash: The caveperson family from “The Croods” encounters a New Age family with modern amenities and a superior attitude to people who live in caves.

Culture Audience: “The Croods: A New Age” will appeal primarily to people looking for lightweight animated entertainment that people of many different ages and backgrounds can enjoy.

Pictured from left to right: Ugga Crood (voiced by Catherine Keener), Grug Crood (voiced by Nicolas Cage), Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), Eep Crood (voiced by Emma Stone) holding Dawn Betterman (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran), Hope Betterman (voiced by Leslie Mann) and Phil Betterman (voiced by Peter Dinklage) in “The Croods: A New Age” (Image courtesy of DreamWorks Animation)

Although not as cohesively written as 2013’s animated cavedweller comedy “The Croods,” the 2020 sequel “The Croods: A New Age” checks all the right boxes for escapist entertainment but offers some sly social commentary on the hypocrisy of self-appointed “hipster lifestyle” gurus. “The Croods: A New Age” pokes fun at so-called “enlightened” people who think they’re open-minded, but are really very bigoted against other people who don’t have the same lifestyles as they do. It’s this culture conflict that takes up a good deal of the movie’s plot until the last third of the movie where it delivers a predictable, crowd-pleasing “race against time” rescue scenario.

Directed by Joel Crawford, “The Croods: A New Age” picks up not long after where “The Croods” ended. The cavedweller Crood family from the first “Croods” movie is still intact: Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage) is still an over-protective patriarch who thinks he always knows best. Grug’s wife Ugga (voiced by Catherine Keener) is still the sensible, more even-tempered spouse in the marriage. Ugga’s mother Gran (voiced by Cloris Leachman) is still a sassy, outspoken grandmother.

Grug and Ugga’s three children also have the same personalities: Eldest child Eep (voiced by Emma Stone) is an adventurous, independent-minded daughter in her late teens; middle child Thunk (voiced by Clark Duke) is likable but a somewhat dimwitted guy in his mid-teens; and youngest child Sandy (voiced by Kailey Crawford), who would be kindergarten-age if these kids went to school, isn’t old enough to have meaningful conversations, so she’s mainly in the movie to look adorable.

The Croods also have a relatively new member of their clan, or “pack,” as they like to call their familial group: Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), an orphaned human from the modern world who spent most of the first “Croods” movie being the target of disapproval by Grug, especially when Guy and Eep fell in love with each other. Guy has now been accepted into the Croods pack. Eep and Guy, who are about the same age as each other, are still blissfully in love.

Guy and Eep are thinking of taking their relationship to the next level (getting their own place together, getting married, and starting their own family), but Grug doesn’t want Guy and Eep to leave the pack to start their own lives. “Eep will never leave us!” Grug declares to Ugga early in the movie. Ugga is more realistic about Eep eventually moving out of the family domain, but she doesn’t press the issue either way.

Guy and the Croods are still on their journey to find a promised land called Tomorrow, which Guy says is a utopia that he knew about when he was a child and when his parents were still alive. The land of Tomorrow is a place where dreams can come true, food is plentiful, and people don’t have the daily struggles of trying to survive the harsh environment that’s a way of life for cavedwellers.

And lo and behold, they end up finding Tomorrow. It’s a world filled with colorful plants, butterflies and creature comforts such as indoor plumbing. (There’s a joke scene in the movie where the cavedwellers marvel at how a toilet works.) But is Tomorrow really the paradise that Guy described? They’re about to find out.

The first two people they meet upon arriving in tomorrow are a married couple named Phil Betterman (voiced by Peter Dinklage) and Hope Betterman (voiced by Leslie Mann), who look and dress like New Age hippies but have the thinly veiled, condescending attitude of uptight bigots. Hope is the more insulting one of the two spouses. Upon meeting the Croods, she says, “I thought cave people died off years ago!”

It turns out that Guy already knows Phil and Hope Betterman because the spouses were the best friends of Guy’s parents, who died in a tar catastrophe, and the Bettermans raised Guy until he was old enough to be on his own. When Guy lived with the Bettermans, he was a close friend to their only child, a daughter named Dawn (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran), who is friendly and somewhat tomboyish. Needless to say, the entire Betterman family is ecstatic to see Guy again.

However, Phil and Hope are disappointed that Guy is in a relationship with Eep, partly because this snooty couple looks down on cavedwellers but mostly because they want Dawn and Guy to end up together. Phil and Hope concoct various matchmaker schemes to try to achieve that goal. Just like Grug was extremely paranoid and overprotective of Eep in “The Croods,” so too are Phil and Hope when it comes to Dawn. The Betterman spouses shield Dawn from the outside world because they don’t want her associating with people such as cavedwellers.

“The Croods: The New Age” could have gone down a very tiresome and predictable path with this love-triangle story, by pitting Dawn and Eep against each other in a catty rivalry. Instead, Dawn and Eep become immediate friends, but that has a lot to do with the fact that Dawn really isn’t interested in having a romance with Guy. Dawn’s parents keep pushing her in that direction though, because they think Guy is too good to be with a cavedweller such as Eep.

Publicly, Hope and Phil are polite to the Croods. Privately, Hope and Phil are appalled by the Croods’ primitive ways. The Croods are sloppy eaters, they have a tendency to burst through the walls instead of opening doors, and they’re sometimes loud and unruly. Hope says to Phil at one point in the story: “I don’t know if cave people belong in the modern world.”

Meanwhile, Phil finds out he and Grug have a common wish: They both don’t want Guy to end up marrying Eep. And so, Phil manipulates Grug into scheming with him to break up Eep and Guy. However, when Ugga finds out about this plan, she gets upset with Grug and makes him see that he’s just being used and that Phil and Hope must think that they’re stupid.

The movie tends to drag when it becomes about this social-class warfare between “modern” Phil and Hope and “primitive” Grug and Ugga. It’s an obvious metaphor for the political divides that can exist between liberal elites and those whom the elites think of as “less progressive” or “backwards.” Likewise, the movie continues the notion from the first “Croods” movie that people who are stuck in their ways can be a detriment to themselves and the people around them.

“The Croods: A New Age” doesn’t take sides or make political statements, because both couples act in less-than-wonderful ways during the story. However, there’s a definite message in the movie about hypocrisy: People who think they’re well-meaning in trying to instill their lifestyle beliefs on others can end up rudely treating those who don’t share the same beliefs as “outsiders” who deserve to be disrespected. And mostly, the movie is about tolerance for other people’s lifestyle choices if those choices aren’t hurting anyone.

Four people (Kevin Hageman, Dan Hageman, Paul Fisher and Bob Logan) are credited with writing the screenplay for “The Croods: A New Age.” And the movie does have a tone of “too many cooks in the kitchen” in how this entire story is constructed. The last third of the movie tries to cram in a lot of action in a somewhat messy way. It’s as if the filmmakers remembered that children with short attention spans are a sizeable percentage of the movie’s audience, and the filmmakers felt obligated to pack in some suspenseful chase scenes in this sometimes rambling and unfocused story.

“The Croods: A New Age” director Crawford makes his feature-film directorial debut with this movie, after years of working as a story artist for several animated films, including the first three “Kung Fu Panda” movies, “Trolls” and “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.” Visually, “The Croods: A New Age” looks better than “The Croods,” because of advances in digital animation since the first “Croods” movie was released. In terms of story, this sequel is inferior to the original, because it’s a little bit all over the place. The plot jumps from the possible love triangle to the tension over social classes to a somewhat bonkers rescue mission that involves a feud over stolen bananas, punch monkeys, Gran losing her wig, and the kidnapping of some of the story’s main characters.

The voice actors elevate the sometimes banal dialogue, with Mann and Cage standing out in their portrayals of the movie’s two characters who have the most opposite personalities (Hope and Grug) in the story. Stone as Eep and Reynolds as Guy also give very good performances, but the love story of Eep and Guy is often overshadowed by the bickering among the rival married couples. And speaking of being overshadowed, the Croods’ two youngest kids (Thunk and Sandy) aren’t given much to do, and their characters have no bearing on this movie’s plot, which essentially wastes the talent of Duke and Crawford.

Musically, “The Croods: A New Age” benefits from the fun score by Mark Mothersbaugh and the selectively spare use of pop songs. (For pop-music overload in animated films, people can watch DreamWorks Animation’s “Trolls” movies.) The Partridge Family’s “I Think I Love You” and Tenacious D’s memorable cover version of the song are put to good use in key scenes in “The Croods: A New Age.” The movie isn’t going to win any major awards, but it fulfills its purpose in being a reasonably entertaining diversion for people who like comedic adventure animation.

Universal Pictures/DreamWorks Animation released “The Croods: A New Age” in U.S. cinemas on November 25, 2020.