Review: Sofia Coppola's "On the Rocks"
Monday, October 26, 2020 at 1:20PM By Lynn Lee
What happens to a poor little rich girl when she grows up?
That question has fueled Sofia Coppola’s career, both to her benefit and to her dismissal by those who find her voice out of tune with the times. I’m not one of the latter, so I sometimes feel oddly defensive about enjoying her films. Although she’s far from the only writer or director to focus on the interior lives of wealthy white people, there’s something about her work that provokes a particularly insidious disdain in a way that Downton Abbey or Wes Anderson, say, does not. Gender is an obvious factor in that difference, plus the shadow of her father and the advantages she’s assumed to have derived from him, as well as the limitations on her perspective of her own privilege. Impatient viewers chafe at her characters’ seeming lack of chafing or rattling of the bars of their gilded cages, which Coppola presents less like cages than delicately tinted soap bubbles, their inhabitants’ discontents and subversions more often internalized than explicitly articulated.
Coppola’s latest feature, On the Rocks, plays in many ways like a wryly self-aware response to her critics...
It has two black main characters (Rashida Jones and Marlon Wayons, who play a married couple), not counting their two adorable daughters. It’s set in a recognizable though still upper-echelon, pre-pandemic NYC of spacious, high-ceilinged but domestically cluttered apartments, awkward work parties, and even more awkward conversations with fellow parents while waiting to pick up the kids from school. It has a more conventional, linear narrative than most of her previous films: a successful writer, Laura (Jones), who’s struggling to find inspiration for her next book fears the fire’s gone out of her life and that her husband Dean (Wayans) may be having an affair with his pretty young assistant. She confides her suspicions in her father Felix (Bill Murray), a lifelong philanderer who decides to launch his own private investigation of his son-in-law to prove that all men are like himself.
Pleasant and likable, if a little slight, On the Rocks feels at once like Coppola’s most and least personal film. Most personal in that its emotional core isn’t whether the heroine’s husband is cheating on her but rather her coming to terms with her complicated relationship with her father and reframing the boundaries of his influence, a theme with obvious resonance for Coppola. (It’s also surely no coincidence that she cast Jones, daughter of Quincy, in the lead role; indeed, the actress has indicated in interviews that that was a subject of bonding between the two women.) Least personal in that the mystery-driven structure flattens Coppola’s trademark dreamy, meditative, indie rock-punctuated style: between the Manhattan setting, the jazz standards, and the marital infidelity narrative, it feels a bit like her take on a Woody Allen movie—albeit one that excises Allen’s querulous witticisms and latent misogyny in favor of a gentler satire of his generation’s attitude towards men and marriage.
Yet make no mistake, this is still a Sofia Coppola joint, in which glimmers of her diaphanous aesthetic still appear, usually in connection with the protagonist’s will-of-the-wisp father. Apart from the dreamlike opening sequence, showing the night of Laura and Dean’s wedding, there’s very little of this quality in Laura’s current daily life. Instead, there’s a mundanity to her domestic routine and the perpetually tired, worried look in her eyes that even those of us who don’t have multimillion-dollar quarters in Soho can understand. Perhaps it’s no wonder she’s still drawn to the dad who broke their family apart with his infidelity but who knows how to wheedle his way into her good graces with a dash of glamour, whether it’s a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers, a two-martini lunch, a sneak peek at a privately owned Monet (Felix was a successful art dealer), or an impromptu trip to a resort in Mexico that’s an exquisite juxtaposition of dusky shadows and pastel hues. Most of their meetings are in hushed, quietly exclusive settings—a club, an old-school steakhouse or hotel bar, Felix’s private chauffeured car—where their conversation can take center stage, in contrast with her time with her husband, which tends to be either in loud, crowded, though trendy spots, over the phone, or constantly interrupted by the presence of their children.
Murray and Jones have an appealing, laid-back chemistry that makes them fun to watch, even if it’s what they don’t say to each other that you wonder about. Murray’s character practically flaunts his obscene level of privilege and trots out some fairly tired lines about man’s propensity to stray, yet there’s a twinkle about how he says them and a genuine affection for his daughter that makes it easier to understand why she would continue to put up with his entitlement and his incorrigible habit of flirting with every woman who crosses his path. Their dynamic shifts when Felix takes his P.I. game a step farther and actually starts to trail the unsuspecting Dean (played with exactly the right level of opacity by Wayans, though at the inevitable cost of his character’s development), with hilarious and, for Laura, mortifying results. Jones, who’s made a steady career out of playing the straight (wo)man to more madcap comedic costars, does nicely understated work here, as Laura undercuts her own skepticism and objections to her father’s antics by allowing him to drag her along—until she finally comes to her senses and reads him the riot act on his own selfishness. Jones is quite good in the scene, as is Murray, yet the confrontation feels like it’s over too quickly and resolved too neatly.
The same goes for the film as a whole, yet that’s also what makes it so palatable at a time when nothing about the world feels like it’s going to be over or resolved any time soon. On the Rocks is escapism, but escapism that’s grounded in broadly relatable emotions and fears about growing older and having to abandon the thrill of romance. Happily, in Sofia Coppola’s world, you can have your cake and eat it, too—even if it’s for just a fleeting moment. B
Playing in limited theaters and streaming on Apple+
Reader Comments (5)
I love Coppola but this was a major disappointment. Not good, not bad, just.... nothing? Even worse than being bad it’s just a nothing movie. Murray and Jones have basically zero chemistry. They don’t really play off of each other particularly well or at least not in any way that is appealing. There’s no charm here, there’s no wit here, there’s no interesting character work. There’s not even any of Coppola’s beautifully slow, dreamy camera work. Nothing.
I really enjoyed this. Bill Murray had me consistently cracking up, and I feel like adult comedies with some substance are still a rare breed. I have a feeling this will be underestimated for the Oscar season and reappraised in coming years as one of Coppola's best - though come to think of it, that happens with her movies all the time. We're going to look back at her career and wonder why we didn't appreciate her more.
I felt ON THE ROCKS was uninspired...! Even Coppola's least well-received movies (MARIE ANTOINETTE and THE BLING RING) had something special: a certain spice, something dreamy, a truly "girly" touch or a smart social commentary.
ON THE ROCKS is Bill Murray. That's it!
"Sofia, being a female and a member of the Coppola Dynasty, has been wearing a Teflon armor for too long, and the “father issue” she tries to come to terms with is more personal and regressive than we can give its credits for. Since many other budding women directors are finally thick on the ground, perhaps it is high time that we look elsewhere for the next auteur-to-be from the distaff side."
- cinema omnivore
I really enjoyed this piece—the descriptions of the backgrounds and moods transported me into these scenes.