There’s an air of lofty criticism drifting through Rebecca Miller’s new film that feels at odds with its production design. Though the decor of the sunny, expansive Brooklyn flats where it’s set convey the kind of aspirational fantasy evident in all of Woody Allen’s work, it mainly seems to be a wry comment on what passes for intellectual bohemianism these days. The protagonist is, of all things, a blocked opera composer. Steven (Peter Dinklage) is obviously successful since he lives in these expensive digs with his wife, Patricia (Anne Hathaway), a therapist who met Steven when he was a patient, and Anne’s 18-year-old son, Julian (Evan Ellison), from a previous relationship. Given Steven’s present professional predicament, it would appear that Anne’s ministrations haven’t been successful, but now she seems to be his agent, an angle that Miller should have explored more thoroughly for its humorous potential. In fact, what this putative romantic comedy really lacks is comedy. Instead, it tries to deliver pointed irony, which isn’t the same thing. One of the running jokes is that Steven calls Anne “Doc.”

The romance component comes in the form of Katrina (Marisa Tomei), a barge pilot whom Steven meets while walking his French bulldog and stopping into a deserted bar for a pre-noon drink. They strike up a conversation and Katrina invites Steven back to her vessel, docked conveniently nearby, where they have sex after Katrina explains that she’s a “romance addict,” a condition that prods her to stalk men with whom she has casual dalliances. This intelligence spooks, intrigues, and inspires Steven all at once. As a result, he has the subject of his next opera. Again, the comic potential in the idea of a blocked creative type becoming newly provoked to make a great work isn’t fully exploited. You get the feel for the material’s potential when one of Steven’s financial patrons raves about the new work as “a female Sweeney Todd,” since Steven plays up the more troubling aspect of his one-afternoon stand with Katrina and blows it up into full-on murderous psychosis. But the element of the story that Miller seems more concerned with is the conventional one—how to keep this brief affair a secret from Anne, who, as it turns out, has her own psychological demons to deal with, not to mention Julian and his under-18 girlfriend, Tereza (Harlow Jane), whose immigrant mother (Joanna Kulig) is Anne and Steven’s housekeeper and whose step-father (Brian D’Arcy James) is a conservative firebrand who accuses Julian of statutory rape. In contrast to this subplot, Steven’s extramarital fling feels insubstantial, and yet Miller insists on elaborating it to lengths it doesn’t warrant. 

Even when Katrina finds out that she is not only the muse of Steven’s new opera but its lead character, things become really tricky, not just for Steven but for Miller, too. I can’t say I completely understood the point of where it all leads, but the final joke at Patricia’s expense—worthy of Allen in his pre-Annie Hall days—is the only one I laughed at. It’s easy to imagine Miller coming up with this joke first and then working backwards, which I would say is not the wisest strategy when writing a comedy.

Opens April 5 in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011).

She Came to Me home page in Japanese

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