Reese Witherspoon’s new movie is a car crash

REESE Witherspoon usually has great judgment. Big Little Lies, Walk the Line, Election. Tick, tick, tick. Her latest? Not so much.

IT CAN’T be easy trying to forge your own path in the shadow of famous parents.

Do you do something completely different or do you try your hand at something similar? If you go down the same path, can you be considered a success until you eclipse them?

Home Again director and writer Hallie Meyers-Shyer is the 30-year-old daughter of Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer, filmmakers renowned for their rom-coms including What Women Want, Something’s Gotta Give, It’s Complicated and Father of the Bride.

As a child, she appeared in six of her parents’ films. Now, she’s making her behind-the-camera debut after an earlier project stalled.

Alice (Reese Witherspoon) is a recently separated single mum who has recently moved back to her childhood home in Los Angeles. With echoes of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, her now-deceased father was a visionary filmmaker while her mother was his acting muse.

She’s trying to make a go of a career as an interior designer while dealing with the anxieties of her just-uprooted children.

Out celebrating her 40th birthday, she meets Harry (Pico Alexander), one of three twenty-something filmmakers navigating the absurd world of Hollywood as they strive to turn their short film into a feature.

After a night of drunken, failed passion, Alice ends up letting the three young ’uns move into her guesthouse, the idea being that sometimes you find family in the most unexpected people.

This? This cannot be a thing.

It’s curious that Meyers-Shyer chose to make a rom-com as her first film but it’s possible that having grown up around them, it’s the world she feels most comfortable in.

It might not have been such a wise move — the comparisons to her parents’ films are inevitable, and to be truthful, the comparisons are not kind.

Home Again could barely be considered a rom-com in that the romance is cringey and the comedy left the room after the first two chuckles.

As the romantic lead, Harry is petulant and entitled and suffering from a total lack of charisma. Alexander is absolutely no match for Witherspoon on screen, nor Michael Sheen who plays Alice’s estranged husband. Every scene with Witherspoon and Alexander is another where you put your fingers over your eyes and ask: “Is it over?”, like watching a car crash in a horror movie.

None of the characters are particularly sketched out and actors with the appeal of Witherspoon, Sheen and Candice Bergen (who plays Alice’s mum) deserve better. Probably the most compelling character was the random guy Alice goes on a blind date with.

Home Again also doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned with real story development — probably a fifth of the movie is made up of montages, all jaunty music and well-lit actors more fitting in a sunscreen commercial.

Maybe for her second feature, Meyers-Shyer should consider another genre.

Rating: 1.5/5

Home Again is in cinemas from Thursday, October 18.

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Originally published as Reese Witherspoon’s new movie is a car crash