I'LL BE RIGHT THERE - Mark Reviews Movies

I'll Be Right There, Brainstorm Media

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 5, 2024

Wanda (Edie Falco) only requires a phone call to drop everything and anything, as long as that call comes from one of the three people she loves more than everything and anything. I'll Be Right There follows her over the course of a few days, as the calls keep coming from one of those people and Wanda doesn't hesitate to get in her car, drive wherever she's needed, and try to solve whatever problem is waiting for her.

As a character, Wanda is defined by this trait and this trait alone in Jim Beggarly's screenplay, which is the whole point of this story. We understand that pretty quickly from her actions and, later, from characters outright stating that fact, so if the story seems repetitive, it's also not very insightful about its protagonist. There's only so much Wanda can show us and we can learn about her, and this movie keeps putting it on display and explaining it over and over again.

To be fair, Falco is very good here as Wanda, the mother of two adult children, who both have their issues and struggle handling them at the moment, and the daughter of a mother who suggests that maybe some of the kids' attitude and behavior is hereditary. Grace (Jeannie Berlin), Wanda's mother, is our first introduction to this dysfunctional family and how unquestionably supportive Wanda can be. The mother has a doctor's appointment, and she's convinced a lung cancer diagnosis is in store for her, since she has been smoking since she was 14—several decades ago. Wanda tries to calm Grace's fears, keep her spirits up, and get her to stop imagining the worst before the doctor even enters the room.

The other thing about Wanda is that she knows best—or, at least, she believes that she does. It's mostly true, although, when she's surrounded by people as neurotic and prone to mistakes as her family members are, it's tough not to be right more often than not. That's one of the stranger elements of this movie, which makes Wanda's family so over-the-top in terms of what they say and do that one really starts to wonder why she's so keen to involve herself in so much of their lives.

That's also a point, perhaps, if only because Wanda's current or former romantic partners hint at or directly tell her that her coddling of her kids and mother is in some way responsible for why their lives can be so messy. It comes from Henry (Bradley Whitford), her ex-husband, whose own life is in disorder, after he re-married, had three kids, and didn't realize the financial strain that would put on him.

It also comes from one of Wanda's two current partners, namely Sophie (Sepideh Moafi), a literature professor who shows up at Wanda's house whenever she has free time, looking for sex and avoiding the subject of why she never invites Wanda into her life. The existence of Marshall (Michael Rapaport), Wanda's boyfriend and the owner of the restaurant where she keeps the books, in her life might be a good thing, and maybe that's why Wanda seems so set on not letting that relationship go anywhere.

There are more characters here, including another potential romance in former high school classmate Albert (Michael Beach), and we haven't even gotten to the two kids, Sarah (Kayli Carter), who's eight months pregnant, and Mark (Charlie Tahan), a recovering drug addict who lies or withholds about so much in his life that his therapist drops him as a patient. Director Brendan Walsh's movie is so busy with so much business around and about these characters that they rarely feel like real people—only broad strokes of eccentricity who exist to keep Wanda on her toes or of bland sincerity who tell Wanda how it is and how she can't see it.

The movie, then, isn't really about its characters, except the one thing we know and keep being told about Wanda, since it's more about how many complications Wanda will have to navigate and messes she'll have to clean up for someone else. There are plenty, including Grace needing a ride home from the casino in the middle of the night, Mark being arrested after lying about his current living and job situations, and, since almost no movie with a pregnant character can resist it, a race to the hospital when Sarah's water breaks at an inconvenient time and place. A lot of this is played for laughs, too, which makes much of it as contrived as a comedy as it is as a character study.

The quieter moments, when Wanda does have to confront how much of her life is devoted to other people and Falco reveals more than just the character's ability to maneuver all of the problems, are few and far between. I'll Be Right There never feels engaged with the character, though, because it keeps coming up with reasons to show us only one real quality about her.

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