Love on the rom-com rocks, for couples both young and old – Chicago Tribune

Within the romantic comedy “Possibly I Do,” a younger couple performed by Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey debate whether or not marriage is of their future. She’s all in; he’s all “What?!” However this bland, lovely duo would possibly as properly be an afterthought. The star sights are their respective mother and father, performed by a murderers row of rom-com veterans together with Diane Keaton, Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon. Rounding out the foursome is William H. Macy, and you’ve got a quartet of seasoned stars who handle, regardless of the script’s shortcomings, to generate some gentle absurdist sparkle and emotional nuance as two late-in-life {couples} coping with some relationship points and extramarital dalliances of their very own.

At its strongest, “Possibly I Do” is a cheery have a look at a not-so-cheery topic: Loneliness in an extended marriage. It comes from author and first-time function movie director Michael Jacobs, whose resume is generally in TV (notably because the creator of the early ‘90s ABC comedy “Dinosaurs”).

Early on, there’s a scene that means Jacobs has some attention-grabbing issues to say concerning the passage of time and the best way restlessness and disappointments can smother you want a weighted blanket that brings no consolation. Sitting alone in a diner one night time, Gere’s character spies a younger couple locking lips at a desk close by. He stares, wistfully. His server walks over and pauses to look as properly. After which she says considerably resignedly: “Not our world anymore.” There’s a lot subtext in that second.

What does it appear to be once you share a house with somebody however don’t actually share your life anymore? If you don’t really feel adored — and even seen? When you’ve gotten a midlife disaster twenty years too late in your 70s and end up questioning: Is that this all there’s?

A romantic comedy about this stage of life? Carry it on! However the movie is simply too hesitant, too nervous to truly let these individuals speak, and I imply actually speak, about any of it. There are monologues, however not the form of back-and-forth that provides a way of who these {couples} had been when issues weren’t so dire. They’ve been grinning and bearing it for too lengthy, after which abruptly the blister pops and so they can’t ignore it anymore. That’s often when the actual conversations occur: What now? Couldn’t inform you, as a result of Jacobs cuts to the ultimate scene, when all has been resolved (or dissolved, relying on the couple). Lacking are the form of onerous, weak grownup conversations that occur between two individuals hashing out whether or not there’s something left to salvage.

Possibly the movie is extra within the youthful couple, you’re pondering. Effectively, no, that’s not the case, both. Roberts and Bracey had been romantic leads beforehand in 2020′s “Holidate” and Roberts in any other case has a hefty listing of rom-com credit. She is aware of her manner across the style. Teaming them up once more ought to work higher than it does, however they’re given so little to play with. There’s a toothpaste business high quality to the best way their characters have been conceived, with vaguely sketched out traits versus personalities: She’s nonetheless harboring bruised emotions as a result of one time her mom mentioned she would by no means be a ballerina, so she turned the quirky woman as an alternative (she is self-evidently not a unusual woman) and he’s … good-looking and simply making an attempt to maintain the peace. The place’s the spark? The place’s the something?

They stay collectively however by no means mentioned tying the knot till now. No matter, I’ll go together with it. She’s insistent and with an ultimatum hanging within the air, they go their separate methods for the night time to hunt counsel from their respective mother and father. Her mother and pa (Keaton and Gere) resolve the answer is to lastly meet his mother and pa (Sarandon and Macy). Or as Gere’s character places it: “Our child sleeps with their child — doesn’t that entitle us to a dinner?”

The purpose is getting the mother and father in the identical room collectively for some humorously chaotic dysfunction that’s all very {couples} swap — the sort whereby the {couples} don’t even notice they’ve been swapping till it’s too late and all their secrets and techniques are specified by a buffet of embarrassments.

Macy and Sarandon’s characters are the more durable promote; he’s wrapped up in delusions that he’s an excellent man who made a youthful mistake and has been paying for it ever since. He’s additionally the form of man who threatens violence towards his spouse as a result of she annoys him. Kinda saps the “com” out of the rom. Sarandon’s character is positioned as a sex-starved, latter-day model of “Deadly Attraction” and it’s conspicuous that no males in her life communicate kindly to her for the sin of … not being demure sufficient? There are sophisticated points on the root of this story, of a mismatched couple who’re properly and really soured on each other. If solely the movie wished to actually discover a few of that.

Gere is the film’s saving grace and one way or the other makes all of it appear price it. He and Keaton labored along with markedly totally different leads to 1977′s “In search of Mr. Goodbar,” so to see them taking part in a pair who’ve palpable love and tenderness for each other, even amid their issues, provides a heat and sudden frisson to their pairing.

But it surely’s greater than that. Gere is barely suppressing a smile in virtually each scene he’s in, bringing an affable “certain, the place do ya’ want me?” vibe to the proceedings.

He’s delighted to be right here — and we, by extension, are delighted by him.

“Possibly I Do” — 2 stars (out of 4)

The place to look at: In theaters

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic

nmetz@chicagotribune.com