The Rings Alice Wore in Home Again

To paraphrase Thomas Wolfe, you lot shouldn't go to "Home Again." Despite the powerhouse presence of Reese Witherspoon, this limp piddling midlife crisis comedy leaves out the comedy and the crunch, and it certainly never comes to life.

Writer-director Hallie Meyers-Shyer — the daughter of filmmakers Nancy Meyers (who produced) and Charles Shyer — seems to be channeling her mother'due south films "Something's Gotta Give" and "Information technology's Complicated" with a portrait of a woman of a certain age torn between a younger lover and a disappointing husband. Only an inescapable shroud of blandness covers everything in the picture show: the characters, the relationships, the cinematography (past the swell Dean Cundey), even the Witherspoon character's Very Dainty House (another cardinal chemical element to Meyers-Shyer's parents' work).

Alice Kinney (Witherspoon) decamps to her childhood home in Los Angeles, two precocious daughters in tow, when her marriage to music mogul Austen (Michael Sheen) starts falling apart. That home is an airy, enormous chemical compound (complete with pool and guest house) once purchased by Alice's late father, a 1970s director of the rebels-on-the-backlot school. (Perhaps titling the flick "Sugariness Dwelling house Bel Air" would take lacked that certain something.)

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Attempting to get her interior design business off the ground — despite the fact that her own dwelling has all the warmth and personality of a model home — Alice is knocked for a loop during her drunken 40th birthday celebration, when she meets handsome immature director Harry (Pico Alexander, "Armed forces"). Harry, his screenwriter brother George (Jon Rudnitsky, "Saturday Nighttime Live"), and their actor pal Teddy (Nat Wolff, "Paper Towns") had a hitting brusk at SXSW, but while their agents dither over getting the feature made, they find themselves without a place to live in Los Angeles.

After they crash at Alice'due south following a boozy night, Alice'due south mom Lillian (Candice Bergen) is won over by the boys, particularly since they glowingly think Lillian's glory days every bit a 1970s cult film star. So the fellas move into the guest house, Alice embarks on a fling with the much-younger Harry, and Austen's hackles are raised enough that he flies cross-country in an attempt to win his wife back.

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Meyers-Shyer may be rom-com royalty, only none of her complications hither band true. For starters, information technology seems unlikely that a adult female like Alice, who grew upwardly the girl of a movie legend and surrounded by the film business, wouldn't have spent her unabridged life fending off wannabes like Harry and visitor. And for her big end, Meyers-Shyer digs out the "gotta get to a kid'due south school play on fourth dimension" finale that is one of the creakiest tropes of modern moviemaking.

"Home Once more" besides operates in a stultifyingly white bubble: the but characters of color with speaking parts are a generic agent and a blazingly stereotypical Indian motel clerk. The picture show fifty-fifty throws in Lake Bell as a selfish, vapid socialite only to make Alice's universe of privilege and wealth seem somehow home-spun.

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Witherspoon brings all of her movie-star moxie to play in a role that never comes together on the screen since it isn't on the page; there'southward just no substance or specificity to Alice. (Or to her Greek chorus of vino-chugging pals, another lift from the Nancy Meyers playbook.) We've seen Sheen play this same charming bounder multiple times now, and Bergen scores the pic's one genuine laugh with a delightfully dry line reading.

While Rudnitsky and Wolff mostly coast on charisma, Alexander'due south sheer vapidity actively undermines the motion-picture show. Then much could be forgiven if Harry were so charming that Alice would be helpless before his magnetism, but he's such a blank, douchey bro that her affection for him actually reflects poorly on her.

Sadly, even fans of Nancy Meyers' legendary flick kitchens will be disappointed by the one on display here, although perhaps that'south a perfect metaphor for a film that's so dramatically malnourished.

eleven Highest-Grossing Movies Directed by Women, From 'What Women Want' to 'Captain Marvel' (Photos)

Take a look at which films directed or co-directed past women are on this list, unadjusted for inflation, according to Comscore.
Paramount
Universal
Summit Entertainment
20th Century Fox
7. Brave" (2012")
Directors: Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman
Domestic gross: $237.3 million
Pixar/Getty Images
Dreamworks SKG
5. "The Matrix Reloaded" (2003)
Managing director: Lily Wachowski and Lana Wachowski (billed equally Wachowski Bros.)
Domestic gross: $281.v million
Warner Bros.
Disney
3. "Wonder Woman" (2017)
Manager: Patty Jenkins
Domestic gross: $412.6 million
Warner Bros.
two. "Captain Marvel" (2019)

Director: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
Domestic gross: $426.8 1000000

Marvel
1. "Frozen II" (2019)

Directors: Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee
Domestic gross: $477.4 million

Disney