Christmas season is a wonderful time of year, particularly as a practicing Catholic preparing to welcome Jesus into the heart once more.  What makes it a little annoying is watching Christmas movies.  My apologies to anyone out there that loves them.  You are entitled to your enjoyment, as am I to my opinion.  Most of them are horrible and repetitive.  However, I have spent the better part of two months discussing them.  I say all this to underscore why I am relieved to be moving on to other material.  A soft landing after the rough film viewing of the past several weeks is Sofia Coppola’s On the Rocks (2020).  It is not her best work, though the critics seemed to have liked it.  I will take it over the majority of what I have been watching for a while now, no matter its snail pace.

An opening narration, in this case by Felix Keane (Bill Murray) at the beginning of On the Rocks, is not usually a recipe for a fast-moving plot.  He is talking to his young daughter, Laura Keane (Rashida Jones), about how no man will ever be good enough for her, and that she will be his forever.  The opening scene proves this otherwise as it is the wedding between Laura and Dean (Marlon Wayans).  When we see her, she seems to be reminiscing over the conversation with her father, but literally dives into marriage as symbolized by the couple slipping away from the reception to skinny dip in a pool.  A number of years pass and she is watching Chris Rock (stock footage) stand-up comedy about how having a spouse means losing something in terms of intimacy.  This appears prophetic as moments later, Dean stumbles into bed exhausted from work and begins to make love to her, only to suddenly stop when he snaps out of his stupor.  The next morning, things go according to an established routine, with mom getting everyone ready to head out the door for the day.  Once she has dropped her oldest daughter at school and put their youngest daughter down for a nap, she begins calling people to get advice about the previous night’s incident.  The first few people she talks to offer reasonable explanations.  It is Felix who claims that Dean is up to something scandalous.  What is also evident just from this conversation is that he is a lady’s man, hitting on practically every woman he meets.  He is also able to talk practically anyone into anything, including his daughter, as we shall see.  The situation is not helped when she finds a female toiletry bag in with her husband’s luggage after he returns from a business trip.  With these suspicions in the back of her mind, Laura is invited to a party at the company for which Dean works.  While there, she meets Dean’s assistant, Fiona Saunders (Jessica Henwick).  During the soiree, Dean spends most of his time with Fiona, prompting Laura to ask about the errant bag amongst Dean’s things.  His excuse is that Fiona could not fit it with her carry-on, so he offered to put it with his suitcase.  Not long after this is Laura’s birthday.  As has been usual of late, Dean cannot be there on the actual day due to having to again go out of town.  Laura is mostly fine with this news, planning on staying at home and enjoying time with her daughters.  This is unacceptable in Felix’s eyes, and he shows up after his granddaughters are asleep in order to take Laura out on the town.  She eventually gives in to his demands after securing a babysitter, and it is while they are at a bar that he proposes that he has Dean followed.  This comes after a number of imagined scenarios Felix puts forward that suggests infidelity on the part of Laura’s husband.  Laura objects, but does agree to look through Dean’s phone when she gets the opportunity.  This proves inconclusive, as do the pictures of Dean hard at work, and nothing else, that Felix has made despite Laura’s disapproval.  Felix has one more bit of information to report: Dean has booked tickets to Mexico.  This tidbit has Laura agreeing to follow Dean with Felix one night after work, watching Dean get into a taxi with Fiona before Felix is pulled over.  When Laura asks about the upcoming trip, Dean reveals that it is a last-minute conference to which he had been called, and of course, Fiona is going.  For Felix, this is potential proof, and he manages to convince Laura to travel south of the border with him to get the proof.  While there, Felix opens up about his own affairs that led to his philandering ways, which is how he claims expertise on Dean’s supposed behavior.  On their first night there, Felix and Laura stake out Dean’s room, eventually seeing a woman at the window.  It is enough to have Laura marching up to the suite when she gets a phone call from Dean announcing that he is coming home early as a surprise.  Further, Fiona catches her outside, assuming that she has come to romantically surprise her husband.  Due to an oncoming storm, she is forced to remain in Mexico while Dean gets back to their home in New York City with questions.  Laura is also furious with Felix for him getting her to believe his paranoia.  Luckily, Dean is the opposite of what Felix believes him to be.  He is naturally upset over Laura behavior, but he forgives her.  She also forgives her father, and her marriage carries on stronger than ever.

What was strong for me while watching On the Rocks was my desire to let my attention wander.  I should not be so critical as it is a well acted and made movie, worthy of the Coppola name.  The problem is that, like watching Christmas movies, it is a little repetitive.  The aspect of it that symbolizes this somewhat annoying loop is Laura’s daily run-in with Vanessa (Jenny Slate), another mom at the school where her oldest daughter attends.  While waiting to pick her up, Laura tries to be patient while Vanessa unloads her relationship problems on her.  There is a point to this as it adds to Laura’s stress over her marriage, but did it have to be some shown multiple times?  In any case, it also emphasizes the need for trust, especially between a husband and wife.  Interestingly, early today while listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast with Father Mike Schmitz, he talked about advice he had heard from a father to his daughter about choosing a spouse.  Instead of giving the clichéd answers of being with a good and/or stable man, this dad says to pick a person who can fast.  You can tell this comes from a Catholic as fasting is a part of what we are asked to do, not just members of the clergy but lay people as well.  A person who can deny themself in a society that increasingly says it is okay to indulge in whatever makes them “feel good” is a person in which one can put confidence.  Jesus, of course, is the ultimate example of this when He fasted in the desert for forty days.  We pay homage to that period of time each year during Lent.  It is difficult to keep those vows for that entire time, even over such innocent things like giving up candy.  There have been moments during those weeks leading up to Easter when I have absentmindedly picked up a bit of chocolate and put in mouth, only to realize seconds later the promises I had made to God.  There are also the aforementioned pitfalls of modern culture.  I do not know if Dean keeps to any of these rigors, but he does maintain loyalty to Laura despite her suspicions.

Because of those doubts, is Laura the villain in On the Rocks?  The answer is no, but neither would I call her a heroine.  One might think of her as an anti-heroine, though such labels are probably moot given that this is a comedy.  Regardless, this is not a bad movie.