On the Rocks

Laura (Rashida Jones) thinks her husband, Dean (Marlon Wayans), is cheating on her. This begins to preoccupy Laura's thoughts that she can't write her book or listen to her friends. Laura senses something is happening by the way associate Fiona holds onto Dean's arm. There is distance between Laura and Dean with Dean being away all the time due to work. She is in full-blown crisis mode. Suddenly, her father Felix (Bill) gets involved.


Writer-Director Sofia Coppola often makes films that are about her complicated relationship with the real world, but in this film, she admits her place in the world is in the shadow of a larger than life guy. It makes the film feel more vulnerable. It plays like a comedy with the surveillance job Murray and Jones pull on Wayans that leads them to a resort in the third act.


Coppola ends the film with you wanting more. The ending doesn't seem to align with the concerns of the narrative. There was no tragedy in her story of marriage and family. Manhattan felt like Rome and the world she created feels mythic. It almost felt like a sitcom as the plot quickly came and was wrapped up by the end of the film. It was drab compared to Coppola's previous works with details of each character laid out exactly.


It's not a great movie but it has a lot of emotion that it tries to make simple.