The Hollars family needs to be even more dysfunctional to be funny.
The Hollars
Grade: C+
Director: John Krasinski
Screenplay: James C. Stouse
Cast: Margo Martindale (Million Dollar Baby), Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hr 28 min
by John DeSando
Where has Margo Martindale, playing the Hollars’ family matriarch, Sally, been since I was impressed with her in Million Dollar Baby? Apparently she has been has been very busy between TV and films, frequently playing a warm, down-to-earth middle-aged lady who is not sexy enough to be the lead but earthy enough to center a film. When she exclaims in The Hollars before surgery that her hairless head makes her look like Rod Steiger, we are witnessing the work of a consummate reality actress.
So she does in The Hollars, a comedy drama with a smidge of romance. The three elements are not strong in each case, and without her gravity the entire film could be nothing more than entertaining, a TV sitcom displaced to the big screen. The setups, such as the feckless sons, weeping father, and man-eating daughters in law, are too lightly handled, lacking depth.
Actor-director John Krasinski, a TV transplant with boyish charm, imbues his film with good-hearted gloom as son John Hollar. He’s unhappy with his work as a graphic novelist and with rich girlfriend, Becca (Anna Kendrick). Yet, everyone is mostly unhappy except for Sally, who is undergoing brain surgery. That will tell you how the film mixes its tone between melodrama and tragicomedy.
Besides the strong mom role, dad Don (RichardJenkins) also holds center stage. A sensitive husband who needs much sympathy (he is losing his business), his bouts of crying are too much for a role that lets him cry over his wife but fire from his failing business a clueless son, Ron (Sharlto Copley).
Other improbable eccentrics include Charlie Day as Nurse Jason, who is married to Mary Elizabeth Winsted’s Gwen, ex-girlfriend of John, and Josh Groban, youth pastor roommate of Ron’s ex-wife, Stacey, played by Ashley Duke. The connections would be comical if they had comic lines to match. Mostly the sentiments are maudlin or mediocre.
I just could not figure where writer James C. Stouse wanted the comedy and drama to go, light or dark?
Thinking about quirky family comedies like Garden State and Little Miss Sunshine, I found The Hollars lacking moments of greatness. Mostly some grand coincidences collide with sentimental observations to end up a film missing a dramatic or comedic core—instead it has a strong mother not in the film enough to make it strong.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
