Mark Reviews Movies: SAM & KATE

Sam & Kate, Vertical Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 10, 2022

There are two potentially sweet romances set up in Sam & Kate. Writer/director Darren Le Gallo simply doesn't trust that such a setup is enough.

The gimmicky casting probably should serve as a bit of a warning sign, even if it is superficially intriguing at first. Here, we meet Sam, played by Jake Hoffman, an aspiring artist who has more or less given up on his dreams of making a career out of his talent. He currently works at a chocolate factory, a place where he was employed as a teenager, but now that he has been living at home to care for his aging and ailing father, Sam is basically stuck in place, without much ambition, and with nowhere to go.

The father, by the way, is played by Dustin Hoffman, and yes, the two actors are father and son. If the shared name isn't enough to make that clear, the resemblance between the two men, both in their faces and their mannerisms, is uncanny. Le Gallo seems to believe the mileage of that real-life relationship is extensive enough to skimp a bit on giving these characters and their on-screen bond much depth.

Sam is the previously described guy, and the elder Hoffman's Bill is grouchy and harsh man. He's sick, apparently with some heart issues, and complains to no end about needing to eliminate smoking, booze, and red meat from his lifestyle. The gag, obviously, is that he ignores such medical advice, lighting up a cigar immediately after a doctor's appointment and explaining to Sam that these are his "gravy years." Hoffman is vaguely amusing in this predictable role, and Le Gallo's screenplay does at least give Bill a softer side beneath his curmudgeonly attitude. It's not much and matters less as the story becomes overwhelmed by conflict and complications, but such touches add a layer to the father-son relationship—only one layer, mind you.

Meanwhile, the younger Hoffman has had some supporting and featured roles in his career so far, and he's serviceable in this leading role. It's difficult to determine his talents as an actor from such a generic character, who essentially mopes around and has to be awkwardly charming whenever he comes into contact with the woman who may or may not become Sam's girlfriend.

She's Kate, obviously, played by Schuyler Fisk, whose name probably won't be too familiar but whose appearance might ring a bell of recognition. She's the daughter of Sissy Spacek, and as soon as Spacek appears in the movie as Kate's mother Tina, we again get that nice feeling of seeing a real-world parent-child connection on the screen. There's a lot more ease between these two characters, even if their shared role in the story is to exist primarily as potential love interests for their counterparts. Fisk is quite charming and imbues Kate with a degree of melancholy that probably should help to avoid some of the story's later complications, if only Sam were even slightly capable of noticing.

Before any of that, though, the story is just simple and kind of endearing. Sam meets Kate at the bookstore she owns, clumsily tries to flirt with her, and seemingly fails. The two meet up by minimal chance at church on Christmas Eve (While the father and son are Jewish, Bill is a practicing Christian, which is a throwaway quirk that suggests Le Gallo might not have had these actors in mind from the start, and make of that perceived necessity what you will). Kate's car won't start, so the two guys give her and Tina rides to their respective homes.

Sam and Kate keep bumping into each other around town. He persists in trying to get her phone number and arrange some outings. She eventually agrees to go out—casually and only as friends, Kate insists—for coffee and to a roller rink. At the same time, Sam notices that Bill and Tina seem to have a connection whenever they meet, so the son suggests that his father should ask her out on a dinner date. It might improve his awful mood, at least.

There are two big secrets that the women are keeping, and that's how the movie eventually falters in its early commitment to just letting these relationships develop on their own. For Tina, it's her habit of hoarding, which she tries to hide from everyone, including Kate, who knows her mother has a problem. As for the daughter, Kate has a past that she keeps to herself and that Le Gallo tries to play as a surprise to be revealed later. It's not much of one, if a quiet interaction the first time we see Kate and Tina together is any indication. The way it serves as an obstacle for the budding romance between her and Sam, though, feels far too contrived, too easily corrected to really matter, and too much like a filmmaker trying to adhere to some kind of formulaic structure.

That's too bad. Sam & Kate seems to be heading in a direction that avoids such easy formula and goes beyond its casting gimmick, but by the end, Le Gallo falls back on both.

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