Tropic Sprockets / Home Again

By Ian Brockway

For those that want to put their brains in neutral, here is “Home Again” starring Reese Witherspoon in a paint-by-numbers romantic film about a spring fever attraction. 

 Witherspoon is Alice Kenney, a single mom and an interior decorator whose father was a visionary director. Though she is obviously a woman of privilege, she is mildly hassled in raising two daughters. Though one begs to know more about Alice, these few facts are all we get.

At a birthday party she goes wild (or what counts for it by making funny faces) and catches the eye of Handsome Harry (Pico Alexander). Alice and Harry go to Alice’s house and are about to smooch, but (surprise surprise) Harry is about to hurl. 

Alice lets Harry sleep it off only to discover that his two best buds are fast asleep downstairs: George (Johnathan Rudnitsky) and Teddy (Nat Wolff). Enter Alice’s mother Lillian (Candace Bergen) who, only after a brief breakfast,  is smitten with the three young boys. Surely the three of them can stay, after all they are starving filmmakers. Strangely, Alice readily agrees. The six of them get along wonderfully with only the most minor of conflicts, despite the boys’ best friend sleeping with the invariably upbeat Alice.

The main fault of this film is that it isn’t really about anything. Smiling Alice bobs her head around and the boys follow her about, doing chores, taking the kids to school and lazing on the white furniture. What are these three really like? We know they want to make a movie of some sort but that is all we know. What is the movie even like that the trio want so badly to produce? We don’t know that. There is some detail about Alice’s attachment to her father as an artist which would have been interesting, but it is not explored or given any depth of feeling.

Instead we get many many scenes of Witherspoon making clown faces, or self deprecating nods with the “Boy am I silly!” expressions that have been displayed before.

Michael Sheen is miscast as the arrogant hubby Austen. When Austen tries to box Teddie and they roll and tumble in the dirt, you just might be wishing for an episode of “Seinfeld”, which has more dramatic tension.

There is an amusing one liner by Rosie (Eden Grace Redfield) which produced a giggle. 

Suffice to say, only the most die-hard Reese Witherspoon fan will find this tepid film novel or interesting, but if you do happen like your protagonists to bawl in front of a mirror only to flash a pristine smile, you are welcome to it.