Home Again Review

PG-13: for some thematic and sexual material

Open Road Films

Directed by: Hallie Meyers-Shyer

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Pico Alexander, Nat Wolff, Jon Rudnitsky, Michael Sheen, Candice Bergen, Lake Bell

INTRO: Oh Reese Witherspoon, your choices confuse me. You can be in an Oscar worthy movie where you can deliver a depth defying performance such as "Wild" only to follow up with a complete train wreck such as "Hot Pursuit." You can be on a great show with a fantastic ensemble like "Big Little Lies," only to follow up with TV pilot that— wait this is a movie? "Home Again" is a film? Are you sure this isn’t a television pilot for CBS?  Oh shit.

Alice Kinney decides to start over by moving back to her hometown of Los Angeles with her two young daughters. During a night out on her 40th birthday, Alice meets three aspiring filmmakers who happen to be in need of a place to live. Alice agrees to let the guys stay in her guest house temporarily, but the arrangement ends up unfolding in unexpected ways. Alice's unlikely new family and new romance comes to a crashing halt when her ex-husband shows up, suitcase in hand. "Home Again" is a story of love, friendship, and the families we create. And one very big life lesson: Starting over is not for beginners.

THE GOOD: What can you say about a movie starring Reese Witherspoon? She’s great in it. It's pretty self-explanatory. You can never see her deliver a half-assed performance. She easily can command a scene whenever the focus is on her. Her character, Alice is very sympathetic and relatable despite the amount of wealth that she has due to her rich parents. She goes through plenty of adult situations that are mature and sometimes emotional. Out of all the characters she is the one thats at least a bit fleshed out.

The rest of the cast has fine chemistry with one another. You have these three friends Nick, Schmidt, and Winston. Oh…. wait those are characters from a TV show. Let me try it again. You have Vince, Eric, and Drama. SHIT! 

Okay, you have Harry (a young director ), George (a young screenwriter), and Teddy (a young actor) who are trying to make it in Hollywood as they stay with Alice and they’re really likable guys who mean well. The movie is filled with likable faces. Though they never seem like real people but more similar to caricatures, you do like them. They have a natural dynamic that’s believable to your typical trio of buddies. They’re not "dude bros," and they all have hearts of gold.

THE BAD: As you can tell by my intro, I think the movie is pretty much a TV pilot that somehow made its way to a theater. This movie is a mixture of the plots of three TV shows.

-    New Girl (three guys living with one woman)
-    Full House (this woman has children and its all sitcom leveled humor)
-    Entourage (the bromance between the three guys especially having all of them trying to make it in Hollywood)

I'm not even lying Harry is a Schmidt/Vincent type character who thinks he's smooth but comes off like a douche and a clingy type too. George who has the personality of Nick of New Girl even to an extent his voice sounds so identical to Jake Johnson. And Teddy who is the youngest and barely even have a personality except he's the loveable baby of the group.

Now mix them up together, and you got this cookie cutter vanilla of a movie that is bland to the very bone. The movie’s PG13 rating is so damn vanilla that nobody even drops an f bomb. Somebody says “shit” probably once or twice, but even then you can put that on Netflix or something. Seriously, this could’ve been a Netflix movie or even a Lifetime movie, and it would’ve done just perfectly fine. So I question, why is "Home Again" in a theater? 

I swear to God the only reason this shit is in the theater is because it's written and directed by Nancy Myer’s daughter, Hallie Meyers-Shyer. Though this is her directorial/writing debut, you can tell she was really passionate about showing the world what she can do. I applaud her for doing it, but then again her mother is also a director/writer so this kind of falls in the realm of nepotism. Not the good nepotism like Ice Cube letting O’ Shea Jackson Jr. play him in "Straight Outta Compton" but more like the relationship of Will Smith and Jaden Smith in "After Earth." You know how in "After Earth" the majority of the movie was Will Smith watching Jaden trying to carry his own? Well, this movie is pretty much Nancy Myers overseeing her daughter trying to carry her own, and just like Jaden, she ultimately fails. I respect her ambition while having this be centered on the daughter of two Hollywood starlets who worked in a lot of iconic cinema (YOU KNOW LIKE HER LIFE). But the film is too busy focusing on silly tropes that are sitcom leveled humor which leads me back to the question WHY IS THIS IN A THEATER?!

I honestly feel hurt because Michael Sheen “supposedly” says he’s retiring from acting, but he shows up prominently in this halfway towards the end of the second act mostly, so his highlight scene is him fighting against Nat Wolff. I know it's fine for these actors to let loose in a comedy but when your comedy only passes through sitcom level humor, you know you’re not doing a service to truly anyone but yourself.

Dear Mrs. Witherspoon can you please STOP BEING IN LAME ROMANTIC COMEDIES?! You are a great actress and I love seeing you shine in leading roles! You prove time and time again that you are phenomenal so why do I keep seeing you in shitty comedies? Is it because ever since "Legally Blonde", you desired to keep going down this comedic path while taking a bit of drama on the side? "Legally Blonde" was empowering even though it has a silly synopsis. That was a revolutionary comedy for women and you were perfect in that, but now you're just going down this road of cliched roles and its sad. You can do better. You can choose better. 

LAST STATEMENT: Home Again prospers from a talented cast and a serviceable performance by Witherspoon, but the aggressive blandness that lays within the screenplay of first-time director Hallie Meyers-Shyer makes this romantic comedy nothing past Hallmark quality.

Rating: 2/5 | 41%

Super Scene: Teddy V. Austen. It's stupid, but I’m a sucker for comedic fight scenes.