Well, we desperately need films about women starting over, but this is not it. Home Again is not an example of courage. If I saw one more flower vase in the frame I was going to puke. The acting is as good as you would expect from a stellar cast while the writing is too cute and trendy when you're dealing with serious issues of women starting out on their own after having had a bad relationship. This idea, concept, much needed storyline is noble, but it is the overall arching republican look of the film and bourgeois life style that made me nauseous. Just where do these kids get all these bucks. It is very sad to feel this negative about a film which has the fabulous Candice Bergen stealing any scene that she's in, but I see it as a dud. Reese Witherspoon is incredibly skilled at playing a person with negative qualities whom you love. She has moved back to LA after her relationship with her husband, Michael Sheen, has ended. Or has it? She has two small children who are adorable and sometimes too cute for their own good. Three-men who are aspiring screenwriters show up in need of a place to stay and somehow end up in her guest house in Los Angeles.
The lifestyle of Reese Witherspoon and her mother Candice Bergen is, I'm afraid, one which reveres money. They have more gadgets, more fine architecture, more more more so much so that the thought of having any caring for a struggling woman is lost in the film’s excess of materialism and the materialistic values of its protagonists. Oh, to see a wrinkled shirt or a pair of dirty sneakers. Three charming twenty something men, Nat Wolff and John Rudninsky are outstanding, but Pico Alexander as the third heart throb falls flat . These ‘men- boys’ take up residence with lonely and horny forty- something Reese Weatherspoon in her guest house, but the one she falls in love with fails in his execution of being her heart throb. Something is missing in his performance and I think it simply is balls.
The whole film is missing balls. One limp dick. So cute at times I wanted to vomit. Pastel would be a better name for this review. If I saw one more flower vase, one more pastel color, or heard one more song from Johnny Mathis running over the sound system, I was going to leave. Frankly I'm sorry I stayed as long if I did. Witherspoon's husband is wonderfully executed by Michael Sheen, but even he cannot rescue this fraudulent film. Lake Bell is a standout as a creepy neighbor, but basically Home Again is a futile exercise to illustrate the loneliness of an older woman and sadly it fails. It fails because too much power has been given to a novice screenwriter and director Hallie Meyers Shyer who is the daughter of the talented Nancy Myers. (Somethings Gotta Give) Nepotism rules this film. Do yourself a favor and watch TV and skip Home Again