PRIME (Ben Younger). 105 minutes. Opens Friday (October 28). For venues and times, see Movie Listings. Rating: NN
Rating: NN
Uma Thurman can keep up with Travolta on the dance floor, beat the crap out of David Carradine and, as Rafi Gardet in Prime, make a young cutie fall in love with her. Said cutie is David ( Bryan Greenberg ), 14 years younger and the son of Rafi’s therapist, Lisa Metzger ( Meryl Streep ). That this set-up doesn’t lead to wacky hijinks is a credit to writer/director Ben Younger .
His script is all over the place, but at least it goes in unexpected directions. A further hurdle for the couple is the fact that Rafi’s not Jewish while David’s family is extremely. Lisa must be based in part on Younger’s mother, and Streep’s portrayal, while not as dead-on in the accent department as usual, manages to be stereotypical without becoming a caricature.
Unfortunately, all the complications make for an unfocused movie, as do extraneous characters and subplots that provide easy laughs but go nowhere. Melding the rom-com with the “quirky family comedy” is a familiar move but difficult to pull off, and Younger doesn’t quite do it here.
If he’d only kept the pace and focus of his previous feature, Boiler Room, he might’ve had a really good movie on his hands.
