The Meddler

A diminutive and misleading title for such an affecting, often profound film.

The Meddler is one of those movies that surprises you by being something it’s not.

With Sarandon in the title role, Scafaria has a winner: The actress tackles Marnie headlong, with heart and soul, trolling the fancy outdoor shopping mall for products to buy and for people to intercept and hang on to.

The Meddler belongs to Sarandon, a famously no-bull actress who digs in deep, showing us how moms aren't one thing, they're all things. How else can they make you laugh from love and cry from crazy? The Meddler knows how. Listen up.

With no car chases or artificial villains to get in the way, and no treacly contrivances to force unearned emotions, the bright, vaguely sitcom-styled movie is free to make audiences feel good on its own genuine terms.

Arriving under the radar, The Meddler is a surprise treat. Go see it with your mother.

Writer-director Lorene Scafaria's film is an unconvincing character study that plays like a painfully unfunny sitcom.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

There are many reasons to see “The Meddler” and 4 are Susan Sarandon, Sarandon, Susan Sarandon and Susan Sarandon. There is a scene of pure joy when she, playing Marnie, starts laughing out of control with her daughter Lori, played by Rose Byrne. In another scene it seems like she is having an orgasm just eating a poached egg in the center of a slice of fried bread with classical music in the background with each beat timed with a bite and any food lover will identify with that! In a scene with J.K. Simmons, playing would be motorcycle suitor---Wait! As he says “I am a Harley Davidson which is a different thing” --she makes him look better on screen than he ever has. And, yes, you can’t take it away from her because when Susan Sarandon appears in that body hugging red dress with a deep V top, nearing 70 in October, she is still one sexy woman. The film is not perfect as there is a screenplay by Lorene Scafaria, who also directed, regarding a mother-daughter relationship which strays far afield to the mother paying for a wedding for a Lesbian couple, played by Cecily Strong and Casey Wilson, her going to private sessions with her daughter’s therapist, Amy Landecker, meddling with her daughter’s ex boyfriend, Jason Ritter, and, yes, meddling in the lives of those around her but, in particularly, her daughter’s. She steers a young Black man, Jerrod Carmicheal, who sold her an Iphone in an Apple store, to go back to school and drives him there every night besides buying a set of text books to help him with his exams, not to forget trying to patch up the rift he has with his brother. Supported with a star studded cast taking small roles such as Harry Hamlin, Laura San Giacomo, not to forget Michael McKean in a slightly bigger role as another suitor of Marnie’s plus 12 bridesmaids with the flower girl being the child of the Lesbian couple there is no doubt that only Susan Sarandon could be THE STAR of this movie! One minor complaint, very minor, every now and then her Brooklyn accent is jarring. “The Meddler” is a movie worth seeing if only for the ‘loving to eat egg and bread’ scene, the red dress scene and every other scene Sarandon is in!

An older woman whose husband died 2 years ago just can't face it. She compensates by "meddling" in her daughter's life since she does not have a life of her own, or can't face the life she has now. By the end of the movie, it all works out and we have a nice "Hollywood" ending.

This movie was what I call a renter, and not worth the cost of movie tickets. I really was cheering for this movie, with better writing, this could have been a great movie, but it kept letting me down. The movie trailer was way better than the movie.

40/100 Sticks very closely to the formula of the rising "Widow Dramedy" genre- it's possibly the exact same movie as last year's I'll See You in My Dreams, what with both being vehicles for talented aging actresses who've been out of the limelight for a while, featuring the actresses putting their deceased husbands behind them, with some daughter drama and granny takes pot interludes. J.K. Simmons even plays what is essentially a bald Sam Elliot (old Sam appeared in I'll See You in My Dreams and about a dozen more of these movies). We don't need this movie over and over! We need nice little genre pieces like Grandma that resurrect Lily Tomlin for some great character drama. I'm just worried for when Diane Ladd and Tom Selleck get mixed up in these formula-indies.