Movie Review - Best Sellers

Best Sellers *½ (out of 5) (NR) Michael Caine. Aubrey Plaza. Great start for an indie dramedy. But how best to deploy such fine assets? No one involved in this effort seems to have figured that out. How disappointing.

Plaza recently inherited a publishing company from her dad, and is struggling. No surprise there in a world that does most of its reading on its phones. Lousy timing. Then in an apparent bit of good timing, Caine’s reclusive author character finishes his second novel, following the prize-winning debut offering that put him and her father on the map decades ago. He’s become like a J.D. Salinger in his isolation, making this book a potentially huge event. Plaza discovers that he’s obligated under a long-forgotten contract to let her publish it, and cooperate in a promo tour; she is barred from changing a word. So the odd couple hits the road, bristling at each other’s presence. The old curmudgeon just won’t play nice with her or the public.

Caine’s resistance to doing what author’s must to spur interest is amusing for a while. Same for Plaza’s efforts to bring him around, lest she lose the family business to an odious, but willing, buyer. There’s also some easy satire about our obsession with the Twitterverse brand of celebrity, basing merit on one’s number of hits and likes. But it’s all downhill from there in Anthony Grieco’s tepid screenplay.

The failure begins with the highly unlikely timing of Caine just happening to finish a book that took decades to write with Plaza’s desperation that brings them together. Same for the miraculous discovery of the old contract that binds them together throughout a Felix and Oscar ordeal. Caine remains too cantankerous for too long; his health issues are overly familiar as plot elements; Plaza’s handling of the frustrating man who is her last, desperate hope for solvency stretches the essential suspension of disbelief beyond reason. The sentimental aspects of the last third of the film are barely on the palatable side of cheesy.

The stars have earned better scripts. Their fans deserve better vehicles. This is Grieco’s first produced script; there are a few clever bits in the mix; he’s young enough to be on the upward slope of the learning curve. The potential is there for more satisfying material to come.

(In Theaters and On Demand 9/17/21)