Premise: A woman and her womanizing father investigate whether her husband is having an affair.
I wish my TV Movie bias would go away. I spent most of my life with a clear understanding of the difference between a TV movie and a movie movie. The level or star, the quality of the writing and direction, and the budget were on a different level that I could easily see. HBO movies had a house style that I couldn't define but I could easily identify. With streaming services obscuring the definition so much, it's even harder to decipher the difference. I'm not sure how much of this is in my head, but many of the new era of "TV movies" feel like B-efforts or curios that couldn't be made as theatrical releases. The rapidly forgotten Mascots is a great example of the former type (B-efforts). It's a Christopher Guest movie that feels like a lesser effort. Like, Netflix offered to produce a movie for him and he picked the fourth one in a stack of old scripts her had. The latter case (curios) is where more of the prestige movies come from. No one other than Netflix would've financed the likes of Roma or The Irishman. The common element among these and many other streaming movies is that I can't imagine going to a theater to see them. Even someone like The Old Guard, which has all the trappings of a theatrical action movie feels a little smaller. The best comparison I can come up with is when a stand-up comedian writes jokes for a character in a TV show to tell. You know the comedian is saving their best stuff for their own set rather than giving everything they have to the writing for the show. So, fictional character stand up sets always leave something to be desired.
The absurd thing is that most of this is in my head, and I know it. I know The Lovebirds and Palm Springs were supposed to have theatrical releases before COVID moved them to streaming, so that's the only reason why they feel different from Always Be My Maybe or Set It Up. I imagine if I wasn't aware of their intended releases, I probably wouldn't register a difference at all. Has someone done a study on this? I'd love to know the results.
This all brings me to On the Rocks. This is Sophia Coppola's latest movie. It was made as part of a deal with Apple to air on their streaming service. And, I feel like I can tell.
That's not to say it's a bad movie. Perhaps it's a lesser Coppola movie, but that says more about how good the rest of her work is. This is the long-awaited reteaming of her and Bill Murray. I love seeing Rashida Jones in a lead role like this. It's also a nice reminder that Marlon Wayans can be really good when he's not trying so hard in his broad comedies. The movie shoots New York City well. Jones and Murray have a really nice chemistry as father and daughter. I love the note that the movie concludes on. It's an overall satisfying enough movie.
It does feel more like the first movie in a four-picture deal than something she was inspired to get made. The movie is a little over 90 minutes and it plays more like it struggles to fill the runtime than that there was a lot that had to be cut out. While it makes good use of the New York locations, it's a movie where I notice the number of locations they shot in. It felt sort of workmanlike, which is something I apply more to classic TV movies. There is one filmmaker it reminds me of though: Woody Allen. No one made more "TV movies" that made it into theaters than him. He made his movies very quickly. His screenplays always felt like first drafts and the films served as an exploration of a single idea rather than feeling like a complete "film". I guess what I'm trying to say is, I hope that Sophia Coppola starts churning out movies like On the Rocks nearly every year or waits 3-4 years to make something as satisfying as The Beguiled or Lost In Translation. 3 years for On the Rocks is a letdown.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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