Murray a Complex Powerhouse in Obdurate St. Vincent
I’m not sure writer/director Theodore Melfi’s debut feature St. Vincent could be any more entertaining if it tried. Alive, strikingly unsentimental yet still affectingly emotional, the film is a colorfully eccentric character study of an unapologetic man refusing to bow to convention and who doesn’t care a lick what others think of him. At the same time this seemingly lonely man, a hermit by all appearances, is just as guilty of judging others with just as biased a point-of-view as those sizing him up have done for many years now making him an odd focal point to wrap an entire feature film around. Melfi risks alienating his audience before they even have a chance to realize what’s going on, starting things on an anarchic note that’s admittedly discombobulating.
PHOTO: The Weinstein Company
This isn’t a good thing, it’s a great one, the movie an energizing dramatic saga that doesn’t so much break new ground as it does exactly what it sets out to do very, very well. More, it offers up a stupendous, award-worthy central performance from Bill Murray, the comedic superstar reminding everyone once again just how dynamic and multifaceted an actor he continues to be.
Murray is Vincent, a curmudgeonly Vietnam vet who ends up striking up a relationship with his new next door neighbor Maggie’s (Melissa McCarthy) 12-year-old son Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher) even though he’d really rather not deal with him at all. Yet as time passes the two develop an odd duck relationship, and while some of their give and take travels down a familiar path numerous aspects of it surprisingly end up in some pretty inventive places. While these two do change the other in some ways, overall Vincent stubbornly stays true to who he is while Oliver doesn’t suddenly blossom into anything more than what he already appears to be. Each remains true to their core essence, which is more radical than it might initially appear, so even when melodramatic excess seeps into the proceedings it doesn’t hurt the overall arc of the film in any overtly discernible way.
But there are issues. Subplots involving Vincent’s bookie Zucko (Terrence Howard) and his pregnant Russian stripper girlfriend Daka (NaomiWatts) come perilously close to overplaying their collective hands, the latter additionally hampered by a mannered and hammy performance from Watts that’s distracting. Both of these tangents don’t have the electrifying emotional grace or subtle simplicity as the core narrative does, and as such they standout in ways that are frustrating and unsatisfying.
Yet this movie still ends up being something close to amazing. It all hinges on a final act where Oliver must talk about Vincent in exacting detail and give a school speech where he explains just how great this man is without sugarcoating his more reprehensible and risible traits. It’s a fine line, Lieberher knocking it out of the park while Melfi’s delicately balanced script brings it all together with resourceful eloquence. It’s handled with tenderly complex grace, this climax speaking directly to the themes the filmmaker has been presenting from the start yet doing so in a way that feels unforced and natural.
Then there is Murray. The actor, an Oscar nod for Lost in Translation aside, has always been an underrated talent, doing more with less on numerous occassions. He’s as stupendous here as he has ever been, giving depth and shading to Vincent that the script happily allows him to cultivate and grow on his own without any extraneous input on its part. He sells every aspect of this journey, even the ones drowning in melodramatic cliché, reveling in the most minute aspects of his character’s being while refusing to mellow out his mean steak or soften his rougher edges. I lesser actor would have tried to soften those edges and engender audiences sympathies but not Murray. He doesn’t seem to care about any of that and in the process crafts one of the year’s most memorable characters.
PHOTO: The Weinstein Company
There is a single moment where I knew this film had won me over. Vincent has been visiting someone for quite some time, putting on an act for her, pretending to be a doctor who pops in now and again to her care facility for impromptu checkups. During one of these visits something happens, a brief spark of electricity that takes place over the course of seconds, but in many ways means the world to at least one of the characters involved. A lesser picture would have drowned this scene in treacle. An unconfident director would have layered on the sentiment and told their composer to intensify every facial tick and teardrop just in case the audience wasn’t keeping track of what was going on.
Melfi does not do this. He allows the majesty of Murray’s performance to do all of the work for him, thus letting this brief snapshot of a life we know little about to crystallize in front of our eyes without any unnecessary augmentation. St. Vincent might not be without problems, it might not have all its ducks in a row, but even the ugly ones blossom into swans, proving once again that looks aren’t everything and that messy, judgmental and rude are sometimes character traits worthy of celebration.
Film Rating: 3 (out of 4)
