The Valet confirms Samara Weaving as knockout star

The 30-year-old actor has won me over with romantic comedy The Valet, which is more sweet than bitter.

Olivia (Samara Weaving) and hard-working valet Antonio (Eugenio Derbez). Picture: Dan McFadden

The Valet (M)
Disney+
★★★½

To paraphrase Tolstoy, each acting family acts in its own way. Debbie Reynolds sang in a nun’s habit while her daughter Carrie Fisher snogged Han Solo. Only one of the three Hemsworth brothers has a boomerang-like hammer. And so on.

Hugo Weaving is a fine actor, from his early Australian films such as For Love Alone and Proof to his blockbuster outings in The Matrix and Lord of the Rings franchises.

His son, Harry Greenwood, is cutting his own path. He is scary and terrific in Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife, in cinemas now. And Hugo’s niece, Samara Weaving, is the knockout star of the bittersweet romantic comedy The Valet, directed by young American filmmaker Richard Wong.

This 123-minute movie is an English (and Spanish, of which there is a fair bit) language remake of the 2006 French film La Doublure (The Stand-In).

Weaving, a Home and Away alumnus (as is her actor sister Morgan), plays someone she is not but might one day be: a Hollywood star.

Olivia Allan is a young and beautiful A-list actor with an entourage of helpers trailing in her wake. She runs a film production outfit that makes movies to “tell women’s stories”. That makes me think of Margot Robbie, which may be an Australian bias. Reese Witherspoon also comes to mind.

Her new film, in which she stars, is about the pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart. It is due to open in five days.

It all seems perfect, except it’s not. Olivia is having an affair with married billionaire Vincent Royce (Max Greenfield) and one day the paparazzi sneak a shot of them together.

Well, almost together. There is a second man in the photo, a hotel parking valet, Antonio Flores (Eugenio Derbez), who is catapulted into the frame after having a mishap on his bicycle.

His unexpected presence is a blessing for Olivia and Vincent, who do not want their adultery outed.

“These are very judgmental times,’’ Olivia notes. “You can’t just be a good actress. You have to be a good person too.”

They – via their agents and lawyers and other hangers-on – come up with a plan to pretend the Mexican-born valet is Olivia’s new boyfriend.

He, old enough to be her father, is nonplussed but agrees because they will pay him enough to retire the debt owed by his wife, who he loves but is separated from.

From here we have the intersection of two markedly different lives. To return to Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia, Olivia and Antonio are from galaxies far, far apart. She is on billboards and has fame and fortune. He is invisible and has family and friends.

There are wonderful scenes, always funny yet sometimes sad, that juxtapose their lives.

When they walk into a fancy restaurant, the world almost literally stops, everyone staring at “The Actress and the Valet”, as the stalking media puts it. When she goes to his home, full of relatives and friends and more food than she’s ever been allowed to eat, she sees a sweet life she has never had.

As Olivia and Antonio come to know each other, the obvious rom-com questions arise. Will they fall in love? This being Hollywood, anything is impossible. When it comes to the age difference, there’s a little joke made about Leonardo DiCaprio.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,’’ says a private investigator hired by Vincent’s wife (Betsy Brandt from Breaking Bad). “I have seen weirder couples.” In a funny, passing moment, this assessment is not lost on the bloke who cleans Olivia’s pool.

Thirty-year-old Weaving, who has had roles in TV miniseries such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and films such as the Oscar contender Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, is a pleasure to watch.

She makes us laugh with – not at – Olivia, and also feel for her. She has won me over with this heartwarming movie – it is more sweet than bitter – and I look forward to whatever she does next.

-

Last Seen Alive (MA15+)
In cinemas
★★★½

Gerard Butler, a late-ish starter in the acting stakes, is fast becoming the Scottish Liam Neeson. In his new thriller, Last Seen Alive, someone has been taken.

The movie opens with Will Spann (Butler) and his wife Lisa (Jaimie Alexander from the Thor movies) driving to her parents’ place. The couple is from Manchester, New Hampshire, and it’s clear they are having domestic difficulties.

She says she just needs a break, some time away from him to “clear my mind”. At 9.30am they pull into a service station. He fills the petrol tank and she walks inside to buy a bottle of water. This is the last time he sees her.

A truck pulls into the service station, blocking his view of the entrance. When the truck pulls out, she is nowhere in sight.

He looks for her in vain then calls the police.

There’s a terrifically tense scene soon after when the local police detective (Russell Hornsby) asks Will into an interview room for a “chat”.

Will is quickly frustrated and close to angry. He thinks it’s a waste of time. The clock is ticking and his wife may be in danger.

The detective says he’s just doing his job. Then he moves on to the pointed questions.

How is the marriage? Do Will and his wife fight? Has he had an affair? Has his wife? Does she have life insurance? She does, Will says, for “a couple of million … which is normal, right?”

This scene, and one earlier with Lisa’s parents, who think her husband is as “suspicious as hell”, shift the emphasis of this 95-minute movie. Is it a kidnap thriller, or is it something else?

Has Lisa been taken or has she left of her own free will? When she goes into the service station, she receives a text from someone named Clint.

I like that Butler, who left the law for the screen at 27, keeps his Scottish accent, which he has to moderate as the US secret service agent in the successful and ongoing Fallen films.

It goes to the doubts about Will. Who is he? He works as a real estate developer and is wealthy. But when he has to throw a punch or point a gun, it’s clear he has more than a stint at LJ Hooker on his CV.

The punches and the guns come because he decides to leave the police behind “and just go and do it myself”.

The question is, what does he mean by “it”?

Will tells the detective that Lisa is “the best woman I have ever met … [but] she has a darkness inside her”. By this time, we are wondering if Will has violence inside him.

The American actor Ethan Embry is a highlight as Knuckles, a childhood friend of Lisa’s who Will thinks knows more than he is admitting.

The music (Sam Ewing) fits the plot so well. It’s odd what one thinks of at times, but as I listened I imagined a giant pinata filled not with sweets but with explosives and shards of glass, swinging heavier and heavier, waiting for the stick to strike.

As someone who likes ambiguity – in plot, in characters – this film works for me.

There’s an interesting backstory with the American actor-turned director Brian Goodman.

He grew up poor in South Boston, turned to drugs and crime and has a prison record and a bullet lodged in his head.

On his release from jail he worked to become an actor and has had roles in films such as Steven Spielberg’s Munich and Catch Me If You Can, along with numerous roles in Law and Order TV shows.

His first film as a director, What Doesn’t Kill You (2008), starring Ethan Hawke and Mark Ruffalo, is semi-autobiographical (the director has a role as a South Boston mob boss).

“Technically, there’s no crime,’’ the detective tells Will early on.

Then that pinata starts to swing.

Gerard Butler in Last Seen Alive