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Whether cracking wise or wreaking cranky havoc, dazzling with his deadpan or trading in daffy banter, everyone loves Bill Murray. As the comic actor starred in sketch comedy television shows, made a name for himself in mainstream movie hits, detoured along the indie route or tried something else unexpected in between, that affection has remained over the course of four decades. That’s exactly what St. Vincent relies upon as it scampers its way to the centre of his output, both in the performance required and in the premise. Murray is asked to do everything he does best, sarcasm, straight faces and sight gags included, in a film that combines cynicism and silliness with the heart-warming and the humorous.
At first glance, Vincent MacKenna (Murray, The Monuments Men) hardly seems deserving of any praise, nor in possession of many virtues. He drinks and drives, he ducks the bookie he gambled away all his money to, and he is rude to everyone who crosses his path, other than the pregnant Russian sex worker, Daka (Naomi Watts, Diana), he pays for companionship. His usual gruff demeanour greets his kindly new neighbours, freshly separated single mother Maggie (Melissa McCarthy, Tammy) and her 12-year-old son Oliver (debutant Jaeden Lieberher), but necessity forces Vincent to assist with babysitting the boy after school. His care is unconventional and often uncouth, and yet his presence is just the thing the lonely Oliver and the struggling Maggie need.
There’s no new path for St. Vincent to tread, just as there are no surprises to find, in what becomes a standard story not of redemption but of acceptance. Vincent’s flaws are seen as strengths, a fractured family discovers hope through an unlikely odd-couple friendship, and lessons are learned by each and every character, as the narrative traverses the expected plot points. Indeed, the tale itself comes second to the main performance, other than providing justification for a tone that careens from amusing to dramatic, sentimental to stupid, and then back again. Writer/director Theodore Melfi’s script may pre-date Murray’s involvement, with Jack Nicholson once rumoured for the project; however in the finished product, it is the actor that feels like its driving force and reason for being.
Murray’s prominence isn’t difficult to understand or embrace, his usual freewheeling never anything less than curmudgeonly yet charming. Even when appearing to operate on autopilot, and to peddle a “best of” package of his greatest screen characteristics, Murray is a delight to watch – and in what amounts to an uncommon lead role at this stage of his career, no less. Vincent is bettered by the depth the audience’s familiarity with the actor’s world-weary oeuvre, as well as with the thematically comparable Rushmore, and the fondness this inevitably brings. Murray himself is bettered by bouncing off of his willing co-stars, more so the refreshingly naturalistic McCarthy and the bright-eyed Lieberher than the cartoonish Watts.
Making his first feature after four short films in just over a decade, Melfi brings the well-worn feel-good material together with the wide shots and nostalgic aesthetic of childhoods gone by; this is a movie that justifies its title by tasking the resident precocious child with writing a school report on which figure in his personal life demonstrates the qualities of a saint, after all. Indulgence is St. Vincent’s main trait, whether asking its lead to carry the show with his cantankerous charisma, or viewers to overlook the obvious formula in favour of the gratifying emotion, or in its too-concerted efforts to evoke broad appeal. It works, albeit with only modest laughs and in no more than average fashion, Murray excluded.
Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
Director: Theodore Melfi
USA, 2014, 102 mins
Release date: December 26
Distributor: Roadshow
Rated: M
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