Laura (Rashida Jones) is a mother of two who, all things considered, is doing pretty well for herself. She’s got a nice apartment in New York, two adorable daughters who aren’t handfuls at all, and Dean (Marlon Wayans) a hard-working husband who’s caring and attentive. Sure, her daily routine seems to have hardened into a rut and she can’t find her way back into her writing (turns out having kids and being used to writing at night don’t mix), but things could always be worse.
For example, she could start to suspect Dean of cheating on her just when her freewheeling father Felix (Bill Murray) lobs back into her life.
Felix is an art dealer and ladies man who flirts with every woman he sees – and is charming enough to mostly get away with it. Even Laura knows he’s not someone she should be confessing her worries to, but where else can she turn? And once Felix is on the case, she finds herself drawn into what threatens to become a full-blown caper tailing her husband all across New York looking for proof of an affair that probably (possibly?) doesn’t exist.
Having writer / director Sophia Coppola back working with Murray again on their first feature since Lost in Translation defined (or in Murray's case, re-defined) their careers is clearly the big draw here. It's something of a surprise then that it’s the earlier scenes built around the rut Laura finds herself in that are this film’s strongest. Murray gives a thoroughly charming performance as a character that plays to all his strengths and he has great chemistry with the equally appealing Jones, but it’s hard not to feel that the film loses something when he’s on the scene, slipping down a notch into a lighter, less memorable mode.
Possibly it’s simply that the stakes dwindle once he arrives. Laura’s relationship is central to who she is; for Felix, much as women are to be adored, they remain essentially disposable. The clash between these views is meant to be one of the film’s core issues – which one of the duo is going through life the right way? – but it’s hard to get much drama out of trying to figure out if someone is cheating when one of the team of investigators thinks it doesn’t really matter because men are programmed to roam.
(Felix does express some minor outrage at the idea that someone would cheat on his little girl, but he can’t sustain it; an angry dad would make this a much less amusing film)
On the Rocks prizes a light touch in all things, but there’s a maturity under it all that makes it feel more like a wine night spent with one eye on the babysitter’s clock than a freewheeling romp through the city at night. The lack of Coppola’s usual swooning romanticism is keenly felt; Felix might live in a high-toned world of wheeling and dealing in a string of luxury apartments, but whatever the artworks on the walls they still feel down-to-earth (he is, after all, always doing business), while the New York they explore only rarely looks like anything more than a series of nicely shot locations.
It's a consistently funny film, though the third act stumbles a little. The humour is rarely an end in itself; a scene where Felix charms his way out of a speeding ticket is both delightful and a pointed look at how a certain kind of white male can slip through life (though Murray's self-aware performance never lets Felix off the hook - he knows exactly how the world works). This grown-up mood is central to a film about a woman who may wonder how she got where she is, but she’s happy (mostly) with the result.
This isn’t about escape, it’s about maintenance. The relationships here aren't idealised; there's no bloom of first attraction, just the ongoing struggle to make it work with people you (still, somehow) love. Lost in Translation was about feeling adrift in a life that had somehow appeared around you and embracing the chance to break out; On the Rocks is more about realising you should be be happy with the life you've worked hard to make for yourself.
It's a perfectly reasonable message for this warm and charming film - though being a successful author with a New York apartment probably helps.
- Anthony Morris
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