Home Again

Reese Witherspoon is Alice, a separated single mum, who moves to California with her two daughters, drunkenly celebrates her 40th birthday and winds up allowing three young male wannabe-filmmakers to move into her guest house. As you do. The usually reliable supporting cast, (including Michael Sheen as Alice’s estranged husband, Candice Bergen as Alice’s mum, and Lake Bell as Zoey), valiantly struggle in a watchable if predictable affair, riddled with coincidence and characters so privileged and superficial it’s all but impossible to relate or empathise with their distinctly first-world problems. Deprived of three dimensions or relatable motivation, Witherspoon (a former Oscar-winner) is all too often forced to resort to cartoonish mugging, as though making funny faces might distract from the clichéd “will-they-won’t-they?” rom-com tropes and one-dimensional characterisation.

Okay, so not all cinema has grand ambition. Just because it’s not enlightening doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. Viewed as a simple, escapist, heart-warming tale set amongst the Hollywood elite, it’s a perfectly adequate distraction which, like a brightly coloured, no-frills plastic wristwatch, at least passes the time, until you’re home again.Hide