Mark Reviews Movies: MACK & RITA

Mack & Rita, Gravitas Ventures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 11, 2022

Now in her 70s, Diane Keaton still has a lot of charm and energy, and it's kind of depressing to think that, for almost 20 years now, she has been playing the same sort of character as she plays in Mack & Rita. She's the "old" woman here—past her alleged prime, making the strength of her personality something both admirable and, apparently, worth a chuckle.

That's the sad state of Hollywood, one supposes. As soon as Keaton was in her 50s, she was "old." Here we are with the actor closer to that relative fact of age, but she's still perky and bubbly and willing to make a fool of herself for a laugh. Just imagine if this were the first time she played this variety of character, and then consider all of the opportunities and roles she could have had in these past couple of decades.

None of this is the fault of the makers of this movie, which is a one-joke gimmick of a comedy that quickly wears out its welcome but sticks around as if it has something substantial it just has to say. It's simply sad that casting Keaton is the obvious choice and would have been for a while now. In terms of what the movie gives her to do, it's sadder that Keaton puts so much obvious effort and talent into this material, which doesn't deserve her and doesn't much benefit from her ebullient presence, either.

The gag is that Mack (Elizabeth Lail), a 30-year-old writer who wants to author a second book but has to pen ad copy for companies' social media accounts, has always felt like an "old gal"—the sort of woman her elderly grandmother was. It was the bright but comfortable fashion. It was the age-based excuse to just relax and have a lie-down whenever she wanted. It was the attitude of having lived so long that she didn't care what other people might think of her now. That's the kind of woman Mack has always aspired to be, but because that would have made her unpopular among her friends, she hid that part of herself.

Obviously, this has little to do with age (Even Mack's grandmother seems to get out and about quite frequently in the prologue, before she dies off-screen with barely an acknowledgement), and it's more the fact that Mack simply possesses an introverted personality. That doesn't make for a gimmick for screenwriters Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh to lie back on, though, so while having a bachelorette weekend for her best friend Carla (Taylour Paige), Mack decides to skip a concert (Carla seems quite accepting of Mack's introverted ways, which kind of undermines the joke and the apparent conflict here) and have a rest at a pop-up tent promising "past-life regression."

The man (played by Simon Rex) in charge of the business both is a fraud of New Agey philosophy and has accidentally stumbled into something legitimately mystical (The screenplay really cannot pick just one joke to which to stick). After awakening from a magical ritual, Mack finds herself to have aged about 40 years, an impossibility that Carla accepts with little convincing. Now played by Keaton, Mack assumes the identity of her made-up aunt "Rita" until she finds a way to become young again.

Anyway, the rest of director Kate Aselton's movie amounts to Keaton's older version of Mack instantly becoming a klutz (There's an extended montage of pratfalls involving an exercise machine), quickly becoming more famous than her younger self (Mack's agent, played by Patti Harrison, get Rita six-figure contracts just from a single social media post), and gradually starting a semi-romance with Mack's kind, handsome, and open-minded neighbor Jack (Dustin Milligan). He's in his 30s, and the screenwriters sidestep any broader cultural ideas or specific plot-based complications that could emerge from this relationship. It's just another joke, because Rita is older, he's younger, and she's actually the perfect and perfectly age-appropriate partner for him in reality.

There's very little logic to any of this, which isn't exactly a necessity for a comedy (It does become odd how no one seems to question Mack's complete disappearance for a month, just before she's to be the maid of honor in her best friend's wedding), but it does add to the inconsistency of setup, characters, and humor here. It doesn't help that Mack & Rita finally amounts to little more than the message of being your real self, which is exactly the kind of greeting card-level lesson we expect from something like this.

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