And So It Goes

Dir: Rob Reiner

2014

*

Rob Reiner has made some great films, including; This is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally..., Misery and A Few Good Men. These are iconic films, 80s and 90s classics. I love him as a director, a writer and as a performer but I'm afraid he peaked long ago and everything he's made since has fallen flat. And So It Goes is about as flat as you can get. It has no real focus, no direction and no real point to it. Michael Douglas plays a miserable widower who finds it hard connecting to people, Diane Keaton plays a tearful widow who let emotion get the better of her. The pair are neighbours but only really connect when Douglas finds out that he has a granddaughter and that his estranged son is dumping her with him while he goes to prison for six months. Of course they get together in the end but between the start and the finish the film is a series of messy ideas, half-hearted performances and badly written cliches. It's the sort of film my parents love but can't explain why. Michael Douglas' character is supposedly still in mourning for his long dead wife but he gets over it in a flash. Diane Keaton is a prude but sleeps with Douglas almost immediately. The sub-plot (even though it is sold as main plot) of Douglas looking after his granddaughter is pretty much forgotten about. Douglas' character starts the film as a racist animal abuser and ends as a true hero because he promised better sex to Keaton, looked after his own flesh and blood and sold a house for 8 Million+. Somewhere in-between all that there is a 'hilarious' scene where Douglas has to deliver a baby in his front room and a dog poops in his garden. The film couldn't have been more lazy, cliched and lost in familiarity. I'm surprised the dog didn't end up speaking to be honest, and in some respects I'm disappointed that it didn't. I guess familiarity is comforting to some folk but I really don't know why people lap this sort of thing up? It's easy to watch I suppose but there is absolutely nothing of quality here. I know my parents like it but I wonder why they're not in the slightest bit critical about the things they watch - as they're certainly critical of everything else. And So It Goes has no redeeming features about it and I wonder whether the title is a sly reference to this and Rob Reiner knows it and is laughing all the way to the bank. I'm not upset by this film as such, only that films like this get funded and brilliant scripts get overlooked.