Film Complaint: Prime: Heyy, This Isn't a Comedy!

— by Caroline on Crack

Bryan Greenberg and Uma Thurman in Prime
Don’t know what’s so funny here.

Warning: Spoiler to follow.

It was a Sunday after two nights of crazy Halloween partying and I just wanted to enjoy a harmless, mindless movie. A comedy. I remembered the commercials for Prime: “older” woman dates much younger man and tells all to her therapist, only to find out that ::gasp!:: her therapist is her new lover’s mother. Sounds fun.

We went to the Arclight, stood in the ticket line alongside Dave Navarro and clingy but cute Carmen Electra, and paid the $14.

OK, I usually judge a movie by the previews since I figure they pick them according to the target audience. Hmmm, one stupid movie preview after another. That Nanny McPhee movie looks so uninteresting. Oh yeah, there was some seemingly _Fatal Attraction_esque film directed by Woody Allen of all people and starring Scarlett Johansson. Audience: “Wha-?”

Prime itself started off promising. Uma Thurman is adorable as the just-divorced Rafi who stumbles into a love affair with a 23-year-old. Nice! And Meryl Streep is such an amazing actor. Just her little reactions to certain situations, things that you take for granted and then think, “Of course that’s how a person in her situation would react.” Anyway, what started off as a romantic Woody Allen-type comedy quickly disintegrated into a very sad love story. I mean sad as in melancholy, not pathetic. I thought that maybe the lovers would overcome the overprotective mother and society’s restrictions on them…but they don’t. And in the end, to drive home the point that it didn’t work out, they play the saddest version I ever heard of “I Wish You Love.” Such a beautiful rendition by Rachael Yamagata.

My friend and I walked out of the theater in tears. It made us think of our own travails in love and as Meryl Streep’s character said, “You love, you move on, and that’s OK.” Stupidly simple but true. Anyway, you could wait for this movie to come out on DVD. No need to rush to the theater. It’s quiet, some funny moments but nothing special. Definitely don’t see it if you feel depressed and want a laugh as it ends on a sad note, like, “Oh well, such is life.” Rottentomatoes.com gave it a rotten 46% out of 100%.