Why Mira Sorvino and Richard Dreyfuss, two Oscar winning actors, decided to star in this bomb is beyond me. Maybe they needed credits to make sure their SAG health insurance didn't lapse and 2021 was a slow year? Who knows?
The "based on a true story" script is mind numbingly awful, with many of the scenes using the reality television technique of showing what happens and then having the characters repeat what happened to each other. Not only does it slow down an already slow script, but it makes the characters seem incomprehensibly stupid. The technique might be explicable if it were used to highlight plot points, but it isn't. It's used for things as simple as explaining the relationships between the characters .
Sorvino's character says she is the Dreyfuss character's daughter five times in the first ten minutes of the film, and she only talks to three other characters, all of whom already know who she is. Does the screenwriter think that everyone watching an AARP revenge fantasy is in memory care?
Mira Sorvino apparently finds the script so exhausting that she sleepwalks through her role, delivering each of her repetitive lines in a monotone. She wears an expression of boredom so flat and distracted that it's hard to believe she isn't heavily medicated, or going through her grocery list.
Richard Dreyfuss, on the other hand, seems to think he can single handedly save this disaster of a film by giving it his all. He chews every bit of scenery trying to wring a performance out of the muddled plot line. However, his energy is so unmatched by the story that it feels like his character has somehow been dropped into the film from another movie. He is sadly overmatched by the overwhelming dullness of the rest of the film.
If the incomprehensible plot, alienated lead actress and dislocated star weren't bad enough, the appearance and sound of the film make me think it was shot on a 2003 iPhone. Random sounds from the set often overpower the actor speaking, the lighting is flat and doesn't focus on the person who should be in the highlight, and the camera jumps around in still shots.
This movie isn't just bad. It's insulting.
