CriticSociety- film reviews

Review

Prime

Director

Ben Younger

Year

2005

Rating

Reviewed by

José Ruiloba a.k.a. Morris

Review date

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

When Prime came out a lot of reviewers compared its director, Ben Younger, with Woody Allen. The movie proved to have a lot of similarities with Allen’s earlier work, with many people saying that it was better than anything Allen had come up in years. I was intrigued, but really, what definitely caught my interest was the cast. I worship Meryl Streep and I love Uma Thurman, so I was there from the get-go.

Rafi (Uma Thurman) is in the middle of an ugly divorce when she meets David (Bryan Greenberg), a struggling Jewish artist who is 14 years younger than she. They start dating despite their different lifestyles, but matters get really complicated when Rafi’s therapist Lisa (Meryl Streep) finds out that the man Rafi is dating is her son.

From the outside the movie might seem to be nothing more than a simple comedy with a premise that will hardly sustain its entire running length. But I was glad to discover that such is not the case. Prime is a romantic comedy with a keen eye towards relationships and the difficulties inherent to them. Sure, the are moments of broad comedy that are laugh-out-loud funny, but they work because of the restraint of the actors in not going over-the-top and the work of the director, who keeps it real at every turn.

So is it really a movie that resembles the work of Woody Allen? It is different, perhaps broader in its tone, but yes, there are similarities. Therapists, Jewish-ness, lovers, misunderstandings, New York, it is all there. And it works. We identify with the characters, we understand their struggles and we’re interested in their outcome. The movie is filled with rich details that give it both intelligence and honesty, whether it’s in the relationship between an older woman and a younger man, a non-Jewish woman and a Jewish guy or a Jewish mother and her son. It also doesn’t take the easy way out, which I thoroughly appreciated.

Meryl Streep is wonderful and a real pleasure to watch. She gives soul to a character that could’ve become a caricature and she just excels with every gesture and every line. She’s funny and touching and difficult and she does it all with ease. Uma proves to be a terrific counterpart, in a role that requires her to be a normal human being, with as much qualities as she has flaws. She’s radiant and I couldn’t get enough of her. Bryan Greenberg, stuck between these two talented actresses, holds his own and makes us believe in David. A nice trio...

“His penis was so beautiful I wanted to knit it a little hat.”

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