And So It Goes
The baby boomer elder dramedy genre is a growing market that has problems getting it up apparently. And So It Goes the latest offender opens with Michael Douglas driving his expensive Mercedes somewhere in the privileged New England countryside. (At least that’s where I think it takes place — substitute it for the yacht-filled ascot-adorned locale of your choice.) He grumbles about a dog rooting around on his lawn.
Michael also looks uncannily like his dad Kirk did in his 70s. And his successful turn as Liberace in Behind the Candelabra aside he seems like his dad doomed to making this kind of rom-com junk in his later years. The same man who spit “Greed is good” with such venom in Wall Street is reduced to blathering about how he tore his rotator cuff the last time he had sex. Oh the ravages of age: in the movies anyway where once-classy actors are eventually forced to wax philosophical about laugh lines and erectile dysfunction.
There’s a welcome need for movies middlebrow and otherwise that deal honestly and wittily with aging. And So it Goes is not that film and one can only hope that this ignoble trash isn’t a grim portent of comedies to come.
Douglas plays Oren Little a miserable and mean realtor with a penchant for pastel suits and passive-aggressive racism. I guess it was a matter of time post-housing crisis before realtors became stock-type villains. He lords over “Little Shangri-La” a condo complex he also happens to own passing his uninspired misanthropy down to his luckless renters. His neighbour Leah (Diane Keaton sporting her trademark fedoras and mime gloves ugh) is a struggling lounge singer (is there anything like this outside of the movies?) who spends her nights singing old standards in a local bistro. The ever-annoying Rob Reiner (who’s also to blame for directing this shit) joins her on piano; he’s also on hand for a few sad “fatty fall down” jokes.
Oren’s son a recovered addict who’s headed to prison shows up on his doorstep with an unwanted gift: his granddaughter. Being the miserable bastard he is Oren initially balks at having to take care of the child. A couple montages later he’s hopelessly smitten. He’s also fallen in love with Leah and the couple quickly bonds over awkward and weepy sex white wine and babysitting. The two lovebirds also spend the first two-thirds of the film mourning their dead spouses but eventually make the wise decision to cut their losses and get on with the September courtship.
By the end of the film Oren’s icy heart has melted and the future looks bright for everyone involved. The film exists in a confusing netherworld of riches and poverty as if the plush East Hamptons were located around the block from downtown Despair U.S.A. It feels as if Reiner couldn’t drag his privileged cast off their nesting grounds at the local arena where the entire film takes place; I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all shot in his backyard. The rest of the cast aside (they don’t matter) Douglas and Keaton don’t seem to register that there’s a film going on around them and their few shared moments of depth — or emotion or acting or whatever celebrities call it — appear like deleted scenes from a better film that was forgotten long long ago.
And So It Goes is a yawning dark pit of anger and sadness confronting viewers with a dismal précis on the twin nightmares of childbirth and real estate. If watching Michael Douglas walk around in shorts and knee-high socks while complaining about having a dick in his face (it’s really not worth watching the movie to get that joke) sounds like a riotous good time cough up 12 bucks take some beta blockers and have at it.
AND SO IT GOES directed by Rob Reiner starring Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton
