You can’t see the name Hallie Meyers-Shyer and not know what it means. I guess if you’re young you might not know that, but if you grew up in the 1990s you do. The daughter of two filmmakers who used to work together, then split up, later made films about their split. They went like this: A great woman is dumped by a terrible man and finds love or happiness again.
These movies are like sitting in a warm bubble bath, drinking champagne, and getting every part of your body massaged. This is true if you’re an older woman, especially if you’ve been dumped by a horrible man, especially if you were married and dumped by a younger woman.
I don’t know the story of Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers’ split, but I can’t help but make assumptions based on the movies she’s made. And all this to say that her child is now grown up and has now made a movie about a man whose younger wife has gone to rehab and how his daughter Mila Kunis has to be pregnant and somehow build a relationship with him.
Here is the trailer:
This is Meyers-Shyer’s second film. Her first was Home Again with Reese Witherspoon, which came out in 2017. I’ve never seen it, so I can’t say if it’s good or not.
I would put GoodRich in the genre of therapy films, films that deal with therapy themes but are also about therapy. It’s hard to measure the influence that therapy culture has had on films and books. You could argue that’s why we ended up where we are now, but I won’t get into that. It’s about the idea that there’s a “right” way and a “wrong” way to be human. When I call the world we’ve built over the last 20 years a “utopia,” this is what I mean: We’ve fixed ourselves, we’ve fixed our world. But can it ever be fixed?
So many films today are about that. But this one is also a character drama that might resonate with other people who have to deal with both parents after a divorce. I think it’s always a pleasure to see Michael Keaton in a role like that.
Most people know Nancy Meyers as the writer and director of The Holiday, a popular Christmas film starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and others. She also wrote and directed Something the Heart Desires, The Holidays and The Ever-Learning Experience.
The joke about her is that her films are crazy home porn. Fact check: true. They are also a tiny bit unrealistic, although well-intentioned. Like I said, like a warm bubble bath. I think if she made a Nancy Meyers film today, it would have to be different, because another complaint about her films is that they only reflect the white upper class world.
Nancy Meyers has achieved a kind of cult status, especially in the age of YouTube/TikTok, mainly because of her style.
Goodrich is on my radar because Michael Keaton is in the lead role and Mila Kunis is in a supporting role. While the film is probably out of Oscar reach, it seems well-suited for the Golden Globes in the Musical/Comedy category. If it’s good, it will hit theaters at just the right time of awards season. I expect it will be released theatrically rather than as a streaming film.
I liked the first comment from a young woman about the trailer:
Maybe she’s on to something.
