Alex of Venice

source: Alex of Venice

Young woman loses her husband and has to take care of her kid by herself. What's new to this story? The good: acting is good. The story is sweet and gentle. There is a certain effort to make it transcend the simple story of a single mom. The bad: it's tedious. It's too safe. This story has been told before, with much more spark and punch in other movies.

An air of melancholy permeates the film through most of its run time. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is solid as Alex, a workaholic lawyer and mom trying to save a rare species of frogs from extinction while working for an environmental agency. She lives with her husband and son at her father's house, a retired actor Roger, played by Don Johnson. The film opens with the family cohabitating peacefully in the doldrums of Venice California but things get ugly quickly as we learn George the husband, played by Chris Messina, isn't happy and wants to separate. Alex is left to pick up the pieces while her father's memory starts to fail, her son struggles with the rejection of his father's absence, her sister shows up and selfishly messes up her weak attempt to help out and her court case unravels. There isn't much to be happy about and the film feels heavy and depressing but does present some hopeful, nuanced situations at the end that suggest things might be okay in the long run. I liked the film but didn't love it. Worth watching for Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Don Johnson (who still looks great in his advancing years).

First, we did like the story inspire of it not being a whole. It was bits and pieces of what could have been very good film telling a deep heart story. But it was not. Trying to have the dad Presence as a separate story told through his early stage stages of fading from life and the theatre. The parts did not connect and some were sadly boring. The setting at Venice Beach and the title made no sense. It could have been in northern Nebraska and call it Alex in Karney. Venice brought nothing to the film except a title that failed to fulfill it promise. No surprises. Don Johnson actually was good. It felt at the end that it was written by a committee and maybe it was with the written by credit given to three. As often happens 'written by committee' always show up as so. It would be really difficult to find anything to say that would be a Spoiler.