Lorene Scafaria wrote and directed The Meddler. Scafaria also wrote and directed Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Seeking a Frined for the End of the World. I mention this because what I’m about to criticize isn’t some rookie mistake. Scafaria should know better.
The Meddler begins with a mind-numbing half hour of filler. Susan Sarandon is a widow from New York City who has moved to Los Angeles to be near her narcissistic scriptwriter daughter. Scafaria’s script has Sarandon volunteering at a hospital, taking care of dogs, and spraying plants with water. The movie actually begins when Sarandon meets a retired cop played by J. K. Simmons who raises chickens and rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. For five brief minutes the movie screen was alive with two stars acting. Then Scafaria’s script sends Sarandon to New York City to watch her daughter’s TV pilot. Yawn. Finally, Sarandon flies back to California, there’s some nonsense with pregnancy tests, and the movie ends.
I complained in my recent review of Money Monster that George Clooney and Julia Roberts were on-screen together for about one minute. In The Meddler Susan Sarandon and J. K. Simmons are on-screen together for maybe five minutes out of the 100 minutes of running time. Movies who waste their stars deserve to fail. The story in The Meddler should have been about Susan Sarandon and J. K. Simmons. Instead, we don’t get story, we get incidents: Sarandon gets into a car accident, Sarandon gets her car stolen, Sarandon eats some marijuana. Incidents are not stories. The actual story in this movie is five minutes long, the rest is filler. GRADE: C