‘Mack & Rita’ Review: Diane Keaton is a Millennial Misfit Embracing Granny Chic in a Confused Body-Swap Comedy
11.08.2022 - 01:27
/ variety.com
Amy Nicholson “Mack & Rita,” the third film by Sundance darling Katie Aselton, is a bewildering generational culture-war comedy that sides with every j’accuse that baby boomers hurl at millennials. Mack (Elizabeth Lail), an awkward author turned reluctant influencer, describes herself as a “70-year-old in the body of a 30-year-old.” She tiptoes through life terrified to be out of step with her cohorts’ harsh judgments.
Here, according to screenwriters Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh (both of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” who aren’t so much satirizing stereotypes about their own demographic as endorsing them), millennials recoil at reading, diners, scarves, carpeting, silence, sensible shoes, chain restaurants and non-conformity. In one scene, 50% of millennials don’t even understand the word “lothario.” Exhausted from the pressure to sport thigh-high, spike-heeled snakeskin boots to a bottomless mimosa brunch, Mack stumbles across a shady huckster (“Red Rocket” star Simon Rex), collapses in his regression tank — and emerges in the body of Diane Keaton.
The body-swapping contrivance is easier to believe than anything the film does with it. Introducing herself to the world as Mack’s Aunt Rita, the character unchains herself from youthful expectations and finds herself instantly embraced by the young as an elderly Instagram influencer: a “glamma,” in the words of her ferociously callow agent (Patti Harrison).On its own, that twist isn’t so hard to believe in a summer where teens and twenty-somethings on TikTok have made trends of granny-chic classics like embroidered LL Bean tote bags and white linen trousers, as popularized by Keaton herself in her collaborations with Nancy Meyers.
The website popstar.one is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can
send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.