Movie Review: She Came to Me

 

Michael’s Movie Grade: C+

A very uneven romantic comedy. 

This film often switches focus from the adult characters to the teenage lovers. Honestly it is much more interesting when it focuses on the adults. The very premise of the storyline with a married opera writer being seduced by a tugboat captain and then writing an opera about this experience is very clever and intriguing. To make this idea even better is that it is often executed with a deadpan and absurd sense of humor that is often quite funny. The best comedic scenes come from the opera composer’s wife, especially with her scenes that show her at her job (she is a therapist) with her patients. The scenes of the opera itself are too brief but truly hilarious. As well as being truly funny, these scenes also had surprisingly good music to them as well as being wonderfully staged. The film certainly is not hurt by wonderful performances from Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathway and Marisa Tomei.

The main problem with this movie is that it spends too much time with the teenage lovers. Frankly these characters are quite boring, and you never get to feel like you connect with either of them. Much of the dialogue between them can feel like it is copied and pasted from many other romantic movies. Even worse is the girl's stepfather whose plot against them comes out of nowhere and feels like it belongs in a film where we aren't supposed to take anything seriously. However even with as much humor as this movie has it asks us to take the most ridiculous plot point completely seriously. Unfortunately, this story of two young lovers can often sideline the more interesting story with the adults. This is a shame, especially since there are some interesting ideas that come up with the adult characters, that end up not being fully explored. Some of the time spent on this part of the movie, could have been spent focusing on those more intresting elements instead. 

This is a very uneven movie. It has some truly wonderful parts, but these can unfortunately become bogged down by a bland love story.