September 10, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Brendan Walsh
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in New York state, the comedy/drama film “I’ll Be Right There” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans and one person of Middle Eastern heritage) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A queer divorcée, whose family members are over-reliant on her, juggles family problems with her sexually fluid love life.
Culture Audience: “I’ll Be Right There” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and “slice of life” movies with good acting.
“I’ll Be Right There” has neurotic characters and a meandering storyline that can be frustrating and funny. Edie Falco’s performance improves this comedy/drama that can inspire debate about family loyalty versus co-dependency. Viewers who expect definitive conclusions and predictable character developments probably won’t like this movie very much. Although there are some moments that seem to be straight from a sitcom, “I’ll Be Right There” ultimately takes a believable approach to the reality that most people can’t or won’t change their flaws in just a few months and might not change their flaws at all.
Directed by Brendan Walsh and written by Jim Beggarly, “I’ll Be Right There” had its world premiere at the 2023 Hamptons International Film Festival. The movie, which was filmed in New York state, takes place in an unnamed small suburban city in New York state. It’s the type of small city where neighbors know each other’s personal business, and gossip quickly spreads.
“I’ll Be Right There” begins with main character Wanda (played by Falco) accompanying her hypochondriac, widowed mother Grace (played by Jeannie Berlin) to a doctor’s appointment. Grace, who has been a longtime smoker, is convinced that she has lung cancer. Grace and Wanda are waiting for Grace’s physician Dr. Hoover (played by Fred Grandy) to tell them what are the results of Grace’s recent physical exam.
As an example of the movie’s somewhat dark comedy, Dr. Hoover cheerfully delivers a good news/bad news diagnosis: The good news is that Grace does not have lung cancer. The bad news is that she has leukemia, but she hasn’t shown symptoms of leukemia yet. Dr. Hoover concludes the appointment by telling Grace: “You might die of something else entirely before the leukemia ever presents itself.” After the appointment, Grace’s reaction is to immediately light up a cigarette.
Wanda works as a bookkeeper and has been divorced for many years. She has a prickly relationship with her unreliable ex-husband Henry (played by Bradley Whitford), who has three sons under the age of 12 with his current wife Allison, who is not seen in the movie. Henry still lives in the area, but he spends almost all of his family time with Allison and their children instead of the children he has with Wanda.
Henry and Wanda have two children in their 20s: Sarah (played by Kayli Carter) is pregnant with her first child (a boy) and due to give birth soon. Sarah is eight months pregnant in the beginning of the movie; the father of the child is her fiancé Eugene (played by Jack Mulhern), who is unsophisticated and passive. Sarah is determined to get married in a traditional wedding before she gives birth. Wanda and Henry’s other adult child is Mark (played by Charlie Tahan), a recovering crack cocaine addict who is a habitual liar and chronically unemployed.
The movie barely shows Wanda doing any work at her job. Instead, she spends most of her time being at the beck and call of Grace, Mark and Sarah. Mark has a love/hate relationship with Wanda. At times, he complains that she is inattentive and that he has abandonment issues because of Wanda. Other times, Mark expresses deep resentment toward Wanda because he thinks she’s interfering in his life too much. Grace and Sarah are very close to Wanda—perhaps too close because they expect her to be like a therapist and a chauffeur for them.
Wanda isn’t saintly, but she shows extraordinary patience in dealing with the volatility and ungratefulness in her family. Later in the movie, she gives a monologue where she makes it clear that not only does she like having her family depend on her so much, but she also lives for this co-dependency and it’s what gives her the most joy, even when it can be very emotionally painful. Adding to the complexity of the character, Wanda is overly involved in her adult children’s life, and yet they still keep some secrets from her.
Meanwhile, Wanda (who doesn’t say what her sexual identity is) has a big secret of her own: She’s been dating an English professor named Sophie (played by Sepideh Moafi), who’s about 15 to 20 years younger than Wanda and who goes over to Wanda’s house for their sexual trysts. Wanda mentions at one point in the movie that dating women is a fairly new experience for Wanda. Sophie and Wanda are semi-closeted in different ways. Wanda doesn’t want her neighbors to know that she’s dating a woman, and she’s not ready to tell her family members.
Sophie doesn’t have a problem with Wanda’s neighbors knowing about their affair, but Sophie won’t introduce Wanda to anyone else in her life, and she doesn’t want Wanda to come over to Sophie’s place. Wanda and Sophie don’t go out on “couple’s dates”; they only have sexual hookups. It bothers Wanda that Sophie won’t let Wanda into other parts of Sophie’s life because Wanda wants to be more than just a casual fling to Sophie. Wanda tells Sophie about these concerns, but Sophie explains that she likes to keep Sophie’s life in compartments.
At the same time, Wanda has been dating an emotionally insecure restaurateur named Marshall (played by Michael Rapaport), who is in love with her, but Wanda does not feel the same way about him. Wanda hasn’t told Marshall that she is cheating on him and that she’s not heterosexual. Marshall is a bit of whiner who likes to complain about getting old and about an injury that he got from a broken wrist a long time ago.
Around the same time that Wanda is having these love-life complications, she becomes re-acquainted with a former classmate from high school named Albert Newman (played by Michael Beach), a divorced dad who has recently moved back to the area and is working as a firefighter. When Albert was in high school, he was bullied for being small and scrawny. As an adult, he is now muscular and confident.
Early on in the movie, there’s a scene that’s an example of how Wanda lets herself be used as a go-to problem solver and counselor for every real or imagined challenge in her family. Wanda is late going to Mark’s therapy session because Sarah has insisted that Wanda go with Sarah to a hospital. Sarah is having an emotional meltdown because she hasn’t felt her unborn baby kick for about 10 hours, so she assumes the baby might be dead. It turns out to be a false alarm.
Viewers might have varying feelings about Wanda’s co-dependency, based on how they think adults should or should not be involved in the lives of their parents or adult children. Is Wanda in the habit of rescuing her family members, or is she enabling them? “I’ll Be Right There” offers realistic performances, led by Falco, who has such exceptional talent, she can make even the silliest scene look somewhat credible. “I’ll Be Right There” is a solidly entertaining character study that doesn’t force the characters to go through drastic changes, but allows these characters to simply be who they are, whether it makes people comfortable or not.
Brainstorm Media released “I’ll Be Right There” in select U.S. cinemas on September 6, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on September 27, 2024.
