Mr. Right
Focus World
It’s difficult to know where to start with this disjointed, haphazard mess of a motion picture. Anna Kendrick, who god bless her, has become the epitome of a great indie performancer, is a freakshow of a human being in this strange, sordid love story. Playing opposite her is the equally talented Sam Rockwell, who is undercutting his trademark majesty with a role as a burbling, manic depressive hit man; who works under a moral code to only kill those who have hired him to kill. Somewhat out of the blue he decides that he fancies Kendrick, and she him, and they wander around New Orleans becoming best buddies. What starts as a cute, if imperfect, set-up quickly devolves into madness.
Eccentric leading ladies have peppered indie cinema to great effect in the past. Unfortunately writers haven’t been trying to make their female characters multi-faceted, which sometimes means their only persona is that of a weirdo. Take Martha for instance. She starts off as a cute, impish oddball, and quickly devolves into an actual insane person. Perhaps this is an intentional move because she and Sam Rockwell fall for each other, and after she hears about his terrible secret it doesn’t take very long for him to persuade her that they actually belong together. Seriously. A hitman, who kills people based on a moral code, that is flimsy even under Dexter’s guidance, is easily accepted by a random stranger, and even loved.
Besides the fact that they fall in love (despite the fact that each is acting unlike any known human being) the action is completely unrealistic. We’re led to believe that any human can catch a blade, even if it’s only inches from their face, based on simple, quick training. We are also led to believe that dainty little Anna Kendrick can take down baddies with little effort as long as she is in the right state of anger. Making her body a deadly weapon, and her character an out and out force of nature, is part of the plot so she becomes more empathetic to Mr. Right (Rockwell), and force her to fall for his calculated charm.
I understand that unusual love stories are sometimes the most interesting (“Natural Born Killers,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Harold and Maude.”) but when you start the film as a cutesy romantic comedy and then try to keep that tone throughout, without expressly saying Kendrick is crazy, it doesn’t feel authentic, or even enjoyable. You can argue that director Paco Cabezas did actyually make Kendrick look crazy, but her friend still stands by her, she and her paramour never venture into violence, like any good criminal couple, and the film ends on an uplifting, cutesy note. Honestly, the unevenness of this film cannot be fixed just by pretending that its leads get to act however they want without some kind of consequence.
