Title: Mack & Rita
Describe This Movie In One Happy Gilmore Quote:
HAPPY GILMORE: But she’s an old lady. I mean, look at her: she’s old. You can’t just take her stuff, she’s too old.
Brief Plot Synopsis: 30 is the new 70, which sounds about right in these, the waning days of human civilization.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 2 Peter Fondas out of 5.
Tagline: “Old soul. New age.”
Better Tagline: “We’re doing this again, huh?”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: 30-year old Mack (Elizabeth Lail) has always felt like an “older woman trapped in the body of a younger girl,” which puts her at odds with her contemporaries while attending the Palm Springs bachelorette party of her best friend Carla (Taylour Paige). Leaving the group to check out a past-life regression tent, she emerges 40 years older. Adopting the name “Rita” (Diane Keaton) and posing as her own aunt, she soon discovers her new persona presents new opportunities, and a possible romance with her neighbor Jack (Dustin Milligan).
“Critical” Analysis: Between tents that rapidly age you and the time loop vortex in that 2020 Andy Samberg movie, maybe you should stay the hell out of Palm Springs.
Mack & Rita is merely the latest in the intermittently popular cinematic tradition of “body swap” comedies. The sub-genre has enjoyed a few peaks, including its late ’80s heyday (Big; Like Father, Like Son, Vice Versa, 18 Again!) and whatever law it is that says there needs to be a new Freaky Friday every 10-15 years.
But it’s been almost 20 years since 13 Going on 30, which was arguably the last significant entry in the category. Mack & Rita, directed by Katie Aselton, helps avoid some of the skeevier aspects of that film (and others) by initially aging up her protagonist, but that doesn’t keep the end product from being a mostly forgettable endeavor.
Mack attributes her “old soul” mindset to being raised by her hip grandmother (Catherine Carlen), but for reasons that are never entirely clear (peer pressure seems the likeliest culprit), she elects to keep her old person feelings bottled up inside. As the movie opens, she’s a struggling writer whose giant Los Angeles apartment is explained by Instagram sponsorships.
The bachelorette party is another avenue for Aselton to hammer home Mack’s aged sensibilities by contrasting her modest sundress with her friends’ bared midriffs, or how she’s only grudgingly online while her buddies chronicle every waking moment on social media. Because only the elderly have ever shown distaste for that.
All of this ought to means *less* of a shock to the system when Mack ages into what is essentially her true form, but that would mean fewer scenes of Rita freaking out, or Carla freaking out when she finds out her young friend has involuntarily joined AARP.
Keaton is perfectly capable of selling the idea of a discombobulated 30-year old in a septuagenarian’s body, which helps when you’re dealing with a script that occasionally (okay, often) forces her into embarrassing slapstick. Mack/Rita do their best to track down Zoltan … sorry, “Luca” (Simon Rex) while navigating the pitfalls of her new age (did you know it’s harder to do Pilates when you’re old? Kids today, I swear).
In the meantime, we endure some pretty excruciating scenes of Keaton and Loretta Devine (as Carla’s mother) drooling over Jack, or Rita explaining Instagram to her older lady friends. And for some reason, we also get Martin Short — as a dog — conversing with Rita while she’s tripping on mushrooms.
As for her relationship with Jack, the winter/spring romance angle is rendered mostly toothless by the fact we’re not looking at an actual 70-year old making eyes at a 30-something dude (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It’s at least less grotesque than when Josh Baskin nailed Susan.
There’s still a lot of “cringe,” as the kids say. from the woo woo empowerment stuff (where the mere act of exercising in public makes one a “warrior”) to watching the 76-year old Keaton contort herself for allegedly humorous effect. These movies all end up the same way, with our protagonists somehow learning to be comfortable in their own skin. It’s a well-traveled road, and one that Mack & Rita doesn’t show much interest in diverging from.
Mack & Rita is in theaters today.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
