Part of the reason for my love was Bill Murray, whose character is empirically an asshole - selfish, entitled, an unapologetic philanderer - but lovable. I have long told people my three favourite movies are Groundhog Day, Rushmore and Lost in Translation and it was only after I started doing this I realised they were all Murray films.
On The Rocks is a clear spiritual sequel to Lost in Translation. Both star Murray, both are written and directed by Sofia Coppola, both beautifully evoke the feeling of a big city, both contain love stories between a selfish older man and a younger woman, both are about disaffection, ennui and the search for something better, and both contain scenes where Murray sings in a bar.
Like Lost in Translation, On The Rocks is filled with preposterously fantastic accommodations and lives of aspirationally sensual creativity. As she does with Tokyo in Lost in Translation, Coppola depicts New York in so many romantically poetic ways, from so many angles: Foggy day, rainy night, hopeful morning, wet cobbles, early evening diagonal street view, jazz-backed night-time rooftop vista.
The first time I watched Lost in Translation, I felt permanently emotionally changed by the steady accretion of feelings, the sense of melancholy, the conveyance of the beauty of the big city, the power and transience of the love stories at its heart. Zanna and I watched it again earlier this year and although it was still pretty good, I didn't connect with it in the same way.
I fell in love with On The Rocks early and I fell hard. I again felt that accretion of feelings, of warmth, of affection toward the characters and their lives. Would that feeling last forever? Hard to say, but unlikely. That kind of love is typically found only once a lifetime.
SHE SAW
An anniversary seems like a good time to watch a movie about a woman slowly becoming convinced her husband is having an affair. I told Greg I had very limited time to watch this film so we had to do it over lunch. He refused my offer to make him something but when I raced to the living room with my plate he casually said: "Actually, I will make some lunch." Things were off to a rocky, and slow, start.
Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation is probably, collectively, our favourite film. It was released before we met but we bonded over our shared love for it. Coppola's great skill, along with her eye for composition and beautiful interiors, is creating mood. Her choices in music and setting always conjure a sense of longing and sadness even when she's making comedy, as she is with On The Rocks.
Bill Murray is effortlessly funny as a father who cajoles his daughter Laura (Rashida Jones) into going on absurd stakeouts to prove her husband's infidelity - clearly a projection of his own matrimonial failings. He's a sort of charming misogynist, if there is such a thing.
The night after watching the movie, at our anniversary dinner, I said I thought Coppola had really nailed the moment when Murray's character earnestly explains to Laura the reason he had an affair: his wife had become so busy with the children that she no longer gave him the adoration he craved, and he wanted to feel that again. Laura responds "Ugh, how exhausting!"
Greg responded to me with: "I'm not like that though . . . am I?"
"Not tonight, honey," I replied.
I do have a couple of criticisms of the film: Laura's husband, Dean, played by Marlon Wayans, feels underdeveloped. He's an implausible workaholic who doesn't seem to notice his wife spiralling into deep mistrust. It's not the sort of comedic role he's known for and his performance lacks depth but it was refreshing that the husband character, not the wife, felt weak.
I really appreciated the way this film understood motherhood and the melancholy, creative impotence and insecurity it can sometimes present. Thankfully, unlike Murray's character, my father isn't interested in filling my mushy mind with fantasies of double-crossing, two-timing husbands. Tailing Greg's every move - primarily from his desk to the toilet and back - would only make me concerned about his bowel and prostate health and would be even more dull and annoying than waiting for him to make his lunch so we could watch this film.
On The Rocks is streaming now on Apple TV+
