You often hear screenwriters talk about the idea of their screenplay.
This is because screenwriters are smart people, and because we all need something to believe in.
But the Hollywood hard-R comedy has never felt so shallow.
Credit: Scott Garfield
Every title is an elevator pitch:Bad Moms,Dirty Grandpa,Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.
Once you get the concept, it’s possible for you to fill in the blanks.
So creditWhy Him?for an unusual virtue: It gives good subtext.
Bryan Cranston plays Ned Fleming, 55 years old and a paragon of 55-year-old American ideals.
He runs a paper company in Michigan.
Anyone who watchedThe Officeknows paper company is a synonym for dying business.
Hes losing business to China and online banner ads.
The companys deep in debt, mere months from bankruptcy.
(He uses an Earthlink account.)
Detroit has popped up in big blockbusters the last few years, almost always playing somewhere else.
It was Gotham and Metropolis inBatman v Superman; it was China inTrans4mers.
InWhy Him?the Rust Belt setting serves a real purpose.
He used to be a car salesman, selling Datsuns.
What, some millennial asks him, is a Datsun?
Something, Ned says, that doesnt exist anymore.
Its a throwaway line, but Cranston gives it layers.
Will his company exist anymore?
The movies joke is easy, but its still clever.
Laird is a maniac, half-punk and half-hippie, prone to f-bombs and impulse-buy back tattoos.
Ned should hate Laird because hes a bad influence.
But modern society calls Laird a genius and puts him on magazine covers.
Hes an entrepreneur; hes pals with Elon Musk; he met Stephanie when Stanford invited him to speak.
And by golly, hesrich.
For dinner, he hires the cute one fromTop Chef to create a one-night-only Fleming-themed pop-up restaurant.
He builds Ned bespoke bowling lanes.
He has a smarthouse A.I.
voiced by Kaley Cuoco, though my fan theory is that he actually just trapped Cuoco in his walls.
Director John Hamburg co-wrote theMeet the Parentstrilogy; consider thisMeet the Disruptors.
Ned is skeptical, or just frustrated.
Most of these internet companies, he huffs, are built on smoke and mirrors.
But its also a stealth missile of social anguish: Why dideveryonechoose this guy?
It all works in theory.
But the executions off.
Thats also true of Zoey Deutch, given a doubly thankless girlfriend-daughter role.
In the Teri Polo part, Deutch somehow haslessto do than Teri Polo.
The film wants to be a comedy of excess, but it just feels excessive.
Lairds got an estate manager with a foreign-man accent (Keegan-Michael Key, trying.)
Hes got a dead moose suspended in its own urine.
You want toilet jokes?
But the films biggest disappointment is the main pairing.
Cranston can make you laugh with a mouth twitch, and Franco is fully invested in Lairds Zuckerberg-meets-Kanye act.
You and I have so much in common, Laird tells Ned.
And Stephanie announces that she loves her boyfriend because her boyfriends so much like her father.
Like a lot of R-rated comedies,Why Him?lands on the most G-rated ideals.
All family problems and economic struggles can be overcome: After all, itisChristmas.
ButWhy Him?has no fun along the way its central conflict.
Its built on smoke and mirrors.
