In the playbook of rom-com variations, this belongs to the "lovable eccentric overcomes his/her oddball quirks and somehow stumbles upon his/her soulmate and true love" category.....
How much you enjoy this storyline depends strictly on the lead actor's ability to navigate the tricky path between the character's bizarre quirks and their fundamental lovability.......not as easy as it looks....
"Carrie Pilby" is blessed to have Bel Powley in the title role, a painfully lonely, intellectually brilliant 19 year old who enrolled at Harvard at 14 and graduated at 18. Now living alone in New York City, her years as a freakish social outcast have give her a hardened shell of fast-talking, witty cynicism.
But underneath her ongoing snarky commentary about the world at large, you can sense her aching vulnerability and feel her emotional wounds. Powley's work here captured us from the film's first minutes.......saucer-eyed in her withering put-downs of everyone around her, when someone finally makes her smile (a rare event indeed), she's luminous. We predict this actress has Academy Awards in her future......
The filmmakers were smart enough to surround Powley with a
supporting cast more than equal to her as they play foils for her to bounce off of......Nathan Lane as Carrie's world-weary therapist, a superb Jason Ritter as a fellow High I.Q. nerd she meets through a personals ad and Vanessa Bayer, who manages to spin comic gold out of that hoary rom-com stereotype, the dopey best friend.....(a character previously owned completely by actress Judy Greer)
Yes, cornball, old-hat stuff.......but when it's done as smartly as this, with a cast as good as this, the whole thing goes down like a sweet, frothy milkshake. 3 & 1.2 stars (*** 1/2).....with most of those stars for Bel Powley, a true up-and-coming star.......BQ recommends seeking it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment