ON THE ROCKS
US, 2020, 96 minutes, Colour.
Rashida Jones, Bill Murray,) Marlon Wayans, Jenny Slate, Jessica Henwood, Barbara Bain.
Directed by Sofia Coppola.
On the Rocks could indicate a glass of scotch. On the Rocks, on the other hand, could be a marriage in danger. While Bill Murray’s character in this film enjoys more than a drink or two, the subject of On the Rocks is a marriage in trouble.
The film has been written and directed by Sofia Coppola, from the film-making Coppola family (with a final credit including mum and dad), and it is very much a woman’s perspective. Sofia Coppola has experienced a divorce. She has been married again since 2011 and has two children. It is clear that she knows what she is talking about – but, there is an extraordinary warmth in her creation of her central character, Laura, and a wonderful relationship between mother and daughters.
The early sequences, marriage and honeymoon, are full of zest and enthusiasm. There is a collage, of the early years, the birth of the first child, then the birth of the second, and then plunging into the realities and routines of everyday life, at home, the older child going to school, ordinary life, comfortable life, in New York City.
Laura is played with great warmth by Rashida Jones.
Yes, we have seen Dean (Marlon Wayans), loving husband, but very busy about creating a company, away from home, travelling a great deal, but isn’t this a phenomenon of many marriages?
The trouble comes when Laura’s father, Felix, Bill Murray, comes back into his daughter’s life. He is 70ish, more than a touch of the past playboy, having walked out on his wife, travelling extensively, and now being chauffeur driven around the city. He still has an eye for women and articulates his evolutionary theories about a man’s attraction to a woman. At first, the audience accept him, and Laura is lovingly genial taunts him though not without reminding him of his irresponsible past. He starts to sow the seeds of suspicion about Dean.
At this stage of her life and marriage, preoccupied with her children, writer’s block about her work at home, feeling the absence of her husband, she is susceptible towards her father’s suggestions (as the audience is as well). What follows is a series of mean suggestions from Felix, his having Dean followed, seemingly providing the evidence that Dean might be having an affair with his associate, innuendo about Dean’s neglect, and even persuading Laura to go on and excursion which ultimately falls flat on its face. Laura realises, as does the audience, that Felix is drawing on his own bad behaviour from the past and nastily extrapolating it on to Dean.
But the question does remain for a long time for Laura and the audience about Dean, innocent or not.
The film has quite a lot of dialogue, especially conversations between father and daughter, a lot of incidental episodes which build up quite a picture of each of them, symbolic in Laura’s name after the song in the 1944 thriller, Laura, and Laura’s inability to whistle.
In many ways, On the Rocks explores the triumph of niceness over nastiness.
1. Different meanings of the title? A drink? A difficult marriage?
2. A New York story, the atmosphere of the city, overviews, buildings, streets, apartments, offices, restaurants? In contrast with a visit to Mexico, the beach and the sea, the restaurant? The musical score?
The work of Sofia Coppola, writing, directing? The personal background? The female perspective? Wife, mother?
3. The opening, the happiness of the wedding, honeymoon, Chris Rock and his observations about intercourse, the collage, the passing of the years, the children? Laura and her life? Her relationship with Dean? His life, work?
4. Ordinary life, at home, Dean and his work, preoccupied, away from home, yet the bond with the family? Laura, work at home? Her writer’s block? Taking the daughter to school, the ballet? The little daughter? Satisfaction in life? Dean and his distance?
5. The routine of lining up before school, the chattering mother and all her issues, Laura’s reaction?
6. Laura, visiting the mother, her sister, the family friends? The background of her father?
7. Felix turning up, the playboy of the past, Bill Murray and his style? The past history, his story of meeting Laura’s mother and the attraction, their life together, the daughters, his wandering eye, affairs, his travel? Leaving her mother? Felix and his continued eye on all the women he encountered, offices, waitresses…? His philosophy of evolution and male attraction to female?
8. Laura’s relationship with Felix, love for her father, but her disappointments of his treatment of her mother? His turning up in her life? Going out, his company, the issue of whether she could whistle Laura or not? The details of their travel together, in the car, Felix’s chauffeur and observations?
9. The introduction of doubts about the marriage? Insinuations about Dean? Laura and her going to the party, feeling an outsider, the young women finding it difficult to talk with her? Fiona friendly?
10. Laura susceptible to her father suggestions, her going with him and observing Dean and the party, Fiona, his phone call about being late? Felix and his interpretation and comments?
11. Dean and the late telling of the trip to Mexico? Felix persuading Laura to go, the result of the an, Felix having Dean followed?
12. Fiona, the house in Mexico, Laura and the meeting with Fiona, the irony that Dean had gone home to be with her, Fiona and her partner?
13. Laura returning home, Dean and his playing with the children, Laura and the truth? The hurt on each side? The reconciliation?
14. A film for the female audience, empathy with Laura, her situation, the influence her father? A film for the male audience to understand women and wives, and the pressure on wives with men’s business and their being absent?
