{"id":8326,"date":"2017-11-01T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=8326"},"modified":"2018-06-28T13:33:44","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T17:33:44","slug":"whither-rob-reiner-and-whither-the-reinerssance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/whither-rob-reiner-and-whither-the-reinerssance\/","title":{"rendered":"Whither Rob Reiner? And Whither the Reinerssance?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rob Reiner is not exactly the first name that pops up when people list their favorite directors \u2014 usually those lists include people like David Fincher, Stanley Kubrick, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry, and others with more of an auteur imprimatur. Yet Rob Reiner has directed more 20 feature films since his 1984 debut, the rockumentary classic This Is Spinal Tap<\/i>; his credits include the charming, sly rom-com When Harry Met Sally\u2026<\/i>, a collaboration with the late, great Nora Ephron; the two talky-political Sorkin scripts A Few Good Men<\/i> and The American President<\/i>; the frankly adorable The Sure Thing<\/i>, starring a baby-faced John Cusack; and the hilarious, fantastical The Princess Bride<\/i>. For many observers, though, Reiner\u2019s been in a slump since The American President<\/i>, a slump that has only recently started to lift with the generally positive reception to 2015\u2019s Being Charlie<\/i>. Now the new LBJ<\/i>, starring Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins, and Bill Pullman, offers another chance at a Reinerssance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whither that 20-year gap? And what makes these earlier projects of Reiner\u2019s succeed, while films like The Bucket List<\/i>, Rumor Has It\u2026<\/i>, And So It Goes<\/i>, Ghosts of Mississippi, North<\/i>, and Alex & Emma<\/i> have lukewarm to downright ice-cold critical receptions? Are Reiner\u2019s late works really so<\/i> bad as to push his earlier successes into the rearview?<\/span><\/p>\n

With many of Reiner\u2019s less-loved films, the plot hinges on a gimmick \u2014 an event that happens merely for the sake of making a movie. The hackneyed setup of Rumor Has It\u2026<\/i>, where the protagonist learns that The Graduate<\/i> was based on her grandmother, requires such a suspension of disbelief that everyone would be making a big deal out of this coincidence that it drags down the performances. <\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, The Bucket List<\/i> exists for its own sake because something needs to happen: two elderly cancer patients from totally different backgrounds decide to become friends and carpe all of the remaining diem before they die. Alex & Emma<\/i> imposes the arbitrary 30-day timeline to finish the protagonist\u2019s novel, with the lurking threat of the Cuban mafia. North<\/i>, which was famously panned<\/span><\/a> by Roger Ebert, features a child genius traveling the world to audition new parents. And So It Goes<\/i> has the cliche of the previously unknown child (or grandchild, in this case) who gives Michael Douglas a new lease on life and teaches him how to be a good person. And while Morgan Freeman\u2019s writer character in The Magic of Belle Isle<\/i> doesn\u2019t start off as a jerk, it just takes a beautiful vacation and the love of the family next door to help him get his spark back. Indeed, The Bucket List, And So It Goes, <\/i>and The Magic of Belle Isle<\/i> go through the same beats: protagonist (or plural) of distinguished age gets back in their groove\/learns to love again\/finds a reason for living through contrived and at times maudlin means. <\/span><\/p>\n

In contrast, the best of Reiner\u2019s films share a common quality rather than a common story structure: they\u2019re light, clever, a little talky, and sweetly sarcastic. What unites these films, specifically, is Reiner\u2019s deft touch, which balances the more serious aspects of the subject matter. Yet the subject matter, with the exception of A Few Good Men<\/i>, never gets truly dramatic or serious, and it\u2019s always grounded in small, everyday truth. People fall in love in complicated ways (When Harry Met Sally\u2026, The American President<\/i>), people grow up and lose their innocence and expectations about how the world should be (Flipped, A Few Good Men, The Sure Thing, Stand By Me<\/i>), friendships necessarily change form (This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me<\/i>). There\u2019s the assumption of kindness, of good intentions, and of people trying to do the right thing. <\/span><\/p>\n

A Few Good Men, Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, <\/i>and The American President<\/i>, while vastly different in plot and setting, do all share a common theme: they are about delving into idiosyncratic other worlds and environments, whether they\u2019re a medieval fairy tale, the walky-talky White House, the rock-\u2019n’-roll lifestyle, or the highly regulated and secretive community of the U.S. military. The relationship of the audience to these subcultures is paramount, as we\u2019re led into a totally unfamiliar and specific world. A Few Good Men<\/i> puts us in the shoes of the relatively green Tom Cruise and Demi Moore, where we learn first-hand what they do about corruption, cruelty, and power. In The American President<\/i> and Spinal Tap<\/i>, we\u2019re flies on the wall, enjoying the witty romance of President Shepherd and Sydney Ellen Wade and laughing at the foibles of the eponymous band. The Princess Bride<\/i> imagines us sitting on the edge of Fred Savage\u2019s bed, listening to Peter Falk wax poetic about giants, adventure, and a little kissing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Flipped<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is in the context of assessing Reiner\u2019s later work, however, that I do want to draw attention to Flipped<\/i> as a model for a Reinerssance movie. It\u2019s an adaptation of a tween-age book and unfortunately flew under the radar upon its release in 2010; it\u2019s hardly on the level of Spinal Tap<\/i> and Princess Bride<\/i> in terms of sheer mastery of narrative, tone, and casting, but it\u2019s certainly as good as The Sure Thing<\/i>, and fits well within Reiner\u2019s established playing field of romance, nostalgia, and loss of innocence. The screenplay, co-written by Reiner, immediately takes a bold step in transporting the action of the novel back to the 1950s and \u201860s (the original narrative takes place in the 1990s), creating ample opportunities to really drive the point of the story home. In the America of the 1950s, plenty of darkness lurks behind white picket fences and perfectly trimmed foliage, which only begins to rear its ugly head during the tumultuous \u201860s. We see precisely this cultural shift happen in Mad Men<\/i>, and the decision (a decision in which Reiner undoubtedly took part) to cast the novel\u2019s traditional coming-of-age narrative \u2014 and the destruction of childhood\u2019s rose-colored glasses \u2014 during this time period has a wonderful parallel quality. It doesn\u2019t emulate the dramatics of Ghosts of Mississippi <\/i>in its interrogation of prejudice, but instead frames them very much within the child\u2019s eye view \u2014 which is perhaps one reason Reiner\u2019s (likely) Boomer-aged usual audience didn\u2019t find Flipped<\/i> compelling. <\/span><\/p>\n

LBJ<\/i> is Reiner\u2019s first biopic, so evaluating it within the context of his oeuvre will perhaps require the establishment of another framework. Certainly, it\u2019s starting off on a good foot; when Reiner worked with acclaimed scribes Sorkin and Ephron, the results were strong, and LBJ<\/i>\u2019s script (by Joey Hartstone) was on the 2014 Black List<\/span><\/a>. Reiner\u2019s comfortable with the rapid pace and mannered behavior of Washington politics as seen in The American President<\/i>, and the idea of a President with good intentions \u2014 even if his behavior is imperfect \u2014 might resonate in 2017 as a comforting fiction. There\u2019s hardly room for any of the tired Bucket List\/Belle Isle\/And So It Goes<\/i> beats to sneak into a fact-based story; if the movie were about a post-presidency Johnson looking back on his tenure, that would be cause for concern, as the Reiner model would likely require the goodness of children to give a grouchy Johnson meaning in the winter of his life. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Deborah Krieger<\/a> lives in Philadelphia, can handle the truth.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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