Movie Review - The Meddler

The Meddler (2016)

Starring Susan Sarandon, Rose Byrne, JK Simmons, Jerrod Carmichael, and Cecily Strong

Directed by Lorene Scafaria

Following her husband's death, widower Marnie (Susan Sarandon) moves from New York to Los Angeles to be closer to her adult daughter Lori (Rose Byrne), a screenwriter coping with a breakup with a longterm boyfriend.  Although she has good intentions, Marnie meddles in every aspect of Lori's life and The Meddler takes this simplistic story and stretches it out over 100 minutes.

While there may seem to be some moderate disappointing shade thrown by this reviewer in that last sentence, The Meddler is a perfectly acceptable comedy with some nice performances.  It's totally watchable and does the job it sets out to do in creating a difficult family dynamic between Marnie and Lori.  Ultimately, there's not quite enough story to prevent the viewer from getting a tad bored in the film's middle acts and what story there is proves to be fairly generic.  However, thanks to Susan Sarandon who really excels here at capturing the overprotective, busybody, stereotypical Italian widower, The Meddler fares better than it maybe even deserves.  I laughed a few times and was engaged in the Marnie character even when her actions were a bit too eccentric to be believed.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-