Prime (2005)

Prime starring Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg is not exactly your typical romantic Hollywood movie. Streep is of course great in her role as the therapist of the 37 year old woman her 23 year old son is currently seeing. Uma Thurman was pretty good Rafael. I liked her performance mostly in the dramatic scenes, the deep talks her and Greenberg would have. Bryan Greenberg also gives a very good performance here, he wasn't just the cliché male love interest, his performance gives his character a good amount of depth. I liked the chemistry between Greenberg and Thurman, it worked. Good on screen chemistry is sooo damn important, without it, why should I as the viewer care about what happens to these people in the romantic relationship? Streep's chemistry with Thurman during the therapy sessions works too. That is mainly where the comedy comes into play. Hearing Thurman vividly describe the sexual proclivities of her and Streep's son is just flat out hysterical! Some of the lines of dialogue Thurman has to deliver with such passion are so hilarious, and Streep's horrified reaction to it all is perfect! Awesome comedic situation. That really was the only part of the whole movie where I laughed and thought what was happening was funny, which is good because the rest of the film is supposed to be dramatic, and the drama works very well. The ending to the movie isn't cliché, and I love it for that! The ending is actually very touching. 8/10

It was watchable... just about. It isn't a really bad film, but it has practically no storyline, and it drags on WAY too long. Also the ending is rather terrible. I think it had a lot of potential to be a good film with the scenario that it revolves around... but the script and storyline was far too restricting and nothing happened throughout the whole film really. On top of this it made me feel like yelling at the characters for being annoying. I found that I just thought the film was a bit stupid and the characters were irritating. The cast was good, Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep both acted well as usual... but their talents were kinda wasted on this. All in all... it's pretty terrible to be honest.

Hollywood is quite comfortable with the idea of romances between older men and younger women, probably because the average studio executive is an ageing man with the financial muscle to pull a glamorous young trophy wife. We can all think of innumerable films in which a beautiful young starlet is cast as the love interest of a man old enough to be her father (or, in some cases, grandfather). Hollywood, on the other hand, is decidedly uncomfortable with the idea of romances between older women and younger men, generally treating such romances as bizarre and anomalous. The best-known film on this theme is "The Graduate", and even there Benjamin ends up not with Mrs Robinson but with her daughter."Prime" is, in all respects but one, a romantic comedy. The normal mathematical formula for a rom-com is A+B-C=D, where A represents "boy loves girl", B represents "girl loves boy" and C represents some obstacle to their love which needs to be removed in order to achieve happy ending D. The lovers in this case are Rafi (it's short for Raphaelle), a recently divorced Manhattan career woman, and David, a talented painter. There are two potential obstacles to their love, a difference in religion (he is Jewish, she a Gentile) and a difference in age (he is 23, she 37).The main plot device in the film is that Rafi shares all her secrets, including her relationship with David, with her psychotherapist Lisa, who (quite unknown to Rafi) just happens to be David's mother. Lisa seems to be the sort of laid-back therapist who, rather than subjecting her patients to deep Freudian analysis, simply advises them to do whatever they feel happiest doing, and encourages Rafi to continue with her affair, even when she discovers that Rafi's lover is in fact her own son. (The ethical dilemmas posed by this arrangement are rather glossed over). Lisa is less happy, however, when she realises that her son's relationship is serious and not (as she had initially assumed) a mere fling.Although Meryl Streep can be very good in comedy, she is surprisingly weak in this film. (She was to be much better in "The Devil Wears Pravda", another comedy set in New York, the following year). The scenes between Lisa and Rafi seem less like a psychotherapy sessions than like cosy chats between two friends, and in her scenes with David Lisa comes uncomfortably close to the stereotype of the neurotic, over-protective Jewish mother. Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg are rather better as the two lovers, although I never got any real sense of the supposed age gap between them, even though this is an important plot point. In 2005 Greenberg was 27 and Thurman a young-looking 35. Although Sandra Bullock, the film-makers' original choice for the role of Rafi, has never been my favourite actress, she might have been more convincing as the older woman. (She would have been 41 in 2005, fourteen years older than Greenberg as opposed to Thurman's eight).Of the two obstacles mentioned above, one (the difference in religion) can be overcome. "Gentile" does not always equal "Christian", and Rafi, who has been brought up without any religious faith, is quite happy to convert to Judaism. The difference in age, however, is another matter. In the world inhabited by Hollywood scriptwriters the 14-year age difference between a 23-year-old woman and a 37- year-old man (or, for that matter, between a 37-year-old woman and a 51-year-old man) would not be an issue at all. When, however, we are dealing with a 37-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man, the same age gap becomes an insuperable obstacle.This is why I described the film as a romantic comedy in all respects but one; it lacks the traditional happy ending. After various ups and downs, Rafi breaks with David, although this is presented less as a heartless rejection than as a noble sacrifice on her part. The assumption seems to be that Rafi knows better than David himself where his true interests lie, that no man in his early twenties really wants to become a husband and father, and that by rejecting him she sacrifices her own happiness to save him from this terrible fate.I must say that I did not like the ending at all. The film has been described as an exploration of the possibility that love is not enough to make a relationship work, but it never really answers the question of what else might be needed. There is no real reason why the relationship between Rafi and David could not have worked; her rejection of him struck me as being both patronising and unconsciously cruel. By following the normal conventions of the romantic comedy the film leads the viewer to expect the standard happy ending for, and then suddenly substitutes an unhappy one, and does so, I think, in order to make a thoroughly reactionary point along the lines of "stick with your own kind", or "don't defy convention". There is always something depressing about a film which preaches a sermon in praise of conformity or conventionality. 5/10

Romances are often attempted, but very few of them succeed. This is because the line between not enough and overblown is so thin that it's easy to miss. Fortunately writer/director Ben Younger finds the perfect note for his romantic comedy/drama, "Prime." Rafi Gardet (Uma Thurman) is just getting over a divorce and is seeing a therapist, Lisa Metzger (Meryl Streep). At Lisa's advice, Rafi gets out into the dating game again, and she quickly meets Dave (Bryan Greenberg), and there is an instant connection. There's a problem though. Rafi is 37, while David is 23. There's also another problem that they don't realize (though Lisa quickly figures it out). David is Lisa's son, which puts Lisa in both a parental and ethical bind (with hilarious results).The most important part of a film like this is the performances; if we can't root for the lovebirds to be together, then the movie quickly becomes boring. Fortunately, "Prime" boasts tremendous performances from its three leads. Uma Thurman is a knockout here, it's easily her best performance since "Pulp Fiction" (in fact, one could even argue that her work here is superior to that of her Mia Wallace). It's a shame that she wasn't recognized for her work here. Her conflict between her love for David and her practical nature is superbly conveyed. I liked the fact that she and Ben Younger opted not to go for the easy route in making her a nutcase just because she sees a therapist. Bryan Greenberg couldn't be more lovable if he tried. There isn't a single moment where we're not rooting for him to make it with Rafi. He ably conveys the adjustments between maturity and being a young, carefree guy he needs to get happiness with Rafi. Meryl Streep is, well, Meryl Streep (meaning she's excellent as always). She knows that even though she may get top billing, Lisa plays second fiddle to Rafi and David, and she leaves it to Thurman and Greenberg to command our attention (which they do perfectly).Ben Younger's script is brilliant in the way it portrays the ins and outs of love. There are rises and falls, and adjustments that need to be made on both parties, and it contains a lot of genuine wisdom. Love is a lot of work, and the script portrays that. This is not "Casablanca" or "Titanic," and it's all the better for it. All three of the principal characters achieve three-dimensionality, and in only one instance does the dialogue seem artificial.What is also noteworthy about "Prime" is how successful it is when the film merges from laugh-out-loud comedy to richly detailed drama. Many films try and do this, but they usually become less interesting after the story gets more serious. Not here. Our connection with the characters is solid enough that even during the laughs we have become invested enough that we still care about what happens to these people. It helps that the story never lets them down either.Much has been made about the film's ending, and that's to be expected. I won't say what happens, except that it's different, and considering how realistic the film is, anything but what Younger gives us would have been a cheat."Prime" isn't perfect. The film relies too much on coincidence at times, and it has slight credibility issues at times. Plus, David's teeth clacking is so off that it's painful instead of seductive. Additionally, the subplot about Morris's (Jon Abrahams) habit of throwing a pie in the face of every girl he dates is a little too silly for this movie.That being said, this is a wonderful film that is one of the most romantic movies out there.