'Mack & Rita' Review: Diane Keaton Is a Millennial Misfit Kissing Granny Chic in Confused Body-Swap Comedy

“Mack & Rita,” the third film from Sundance sweetheart Katie Aselton, is a baffling generational comedy of culture warfare that sides with every I accuse that baby- Boomers pitch to millennials. Mack (Elizabeth Lail), an awkward author turned reluctant influencer, describes herself as “70 in the body of a 30-something.” She tiptoes through life, terrified of being out of step with the harsh judgments of her acolytes. Here, according to screenwriters Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh (both of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," who don't so much satirize stereotypes about their own demographics as endorse them), millennials recoil from reading, dining out, scarves, carpeting, silence, sensitive shoes, restaurant chains and non-compliance. In one scene, 50% of millennials don't even understand the word "lothario".

Exhausted from the pressure of wearing high-heeled snakeskin thigh-high boots to a bottomless mimosa brunch, Mack comes across a sleazy peddler ('Red Rocket' star Simon Rex), collapses in his tank of regression - and emerges in the body of Diane Keaton. The body-swapping trick is easier to believe than anything the movie makes of it. Introducing herself to the world as Mack's Aunt Rita, the character breaks free from youthful expectations and finds herself instantly embraced by young people as an elderly Instagram influencer: a "glamma", in the words of her fiercely inexperienced (Patti Harrison).< /p>

By itself, that twist isn't so hard to believe in a summer when teens and 20-somethings on TikTok set trends in granny-chic classics like embroidered LL Bean tote bags and white linen pants, popularized by Keaton herself in her collaborations with Nancy Meyers. (A sequence where newly-transformed Aunt Rita dons a goofy blazer and wide belt is shown with anticipation of Bruce Wayne reaching up her hood.) What's mystifying is that the film has no hold on what it means to say about Aunt Rita's night. rise to a millennial style icon. Were Mack's blocks all in his head? (Not according to the opening scenes.) Is quirky fashion only suitable when old people do it? (Not according to the ending scenes.) Should Mack/Rita agree to be an influencer after all? (No, but then yes, but then no, but wait - yes!)

Most viewers will stop sifting through these mixed messages the moment Aunt Rita takes her decades-younger neighbor Jack (Dustin Milligan) on a defiantly silly date at a California pizzeria. The scene talks about the two links to being uncool. But the movie's hummingbird attention span immediately drops its own setup for a throwaway joke where Rita gets jealous that their lunch is interrupted by a hipster girl in a bare-bellied top who's also eating there.

"Mack & Rita" does as little with its ambition to turn Rita and Jack's romance into an updated "Harold and Maude" as it does with its own demagoguery against ageism. Ageism is bad, we are told. Except for the shameful fact that Jack continues to skateboard as a man in his early thirties – a hobby that all the characters, including Rita, agree is totally lame – in which case the Ageism is absolutely correct. Momentarily, the film argues that getting older gives Rita the prospect of better standing up for herself - but that thesis, too, is turned around when Rita finds herself bullied into a situation that literally burns her.

Keaton does his best with the material. Her own inner youth shines through the character even when the script lets her down, forcing her to moan in distress at the sight of her hair and breasts, or putting her through an extremely long physical comedy scene where she struggles. to use a pilates machine. The film convinces us at the very least that most people would want to transform into Keaton if they had the chance.

Even more, it convinces us that most actors are thrilled to work alongside her: Keaton's presence is the only reason we can imagine that talents like Taylour Paige, Loretta Devine, Wendi Malick, Lois Smith and Nicole Byer signed on for this project to play the various friends and acquaintances in its orbit, each part more subscribed than the next. As for Rex, essentially presented as a human Voltar machine, he's a funny mix of talker and baffled inventor when his hand-painted tanning bed sets the plot in motion. "Time is only a construction!" He barks. This mantra can help the movie go faster.