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David (Bryan Greenberg) and Rafi (Uma Thurman) share an unexpected romantic moment in "Prime."Review
'Prime's' not Woody Allen -- but the movie is funny
Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep bring light to Ben Younger's romantic story.
Meryl Streep plays Dr. Lisa Metzger, a therapist who dispenses advice to her patient, Thurman, and to her son, Greenberg.See it, rate it
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Comparisons to Woody Allen are inevitable with "Prime." Any movie that features a Jewish mother who's a therapist and a romance between people of different generations is going to conjure up Allen for a variety of reasons.
So let's start out with a list of ways in which "Prime" is not similar to a Allen movie. First, it doesn't star Allen or anyone who remotely looks or acts like Allen. Next, it is not preoccupied with death. Nor does it come anywhere near being either as complex or as funny as Allen at his best.
But it is a movie about the difficulties of love, it does take place in New York City, there are all sorts of jokes associated with growing up Jewish and, perhaps most importantly, there's a sweet underlying sense of romance resigned to failure beneath it all. There's both a love of love and a sense of reality in this movie, which ends up more romance than comedy.
Written and directed by Ben Younger ("Boiler Room"), "Prime" isn't exactly plot driven; it establishes its premise and then unspools. Uma Thurman plays Rafi, a just-divorced, successful professional woman. Meryl Streep is Dr. Lisa Metzger, Rafi's therapist and confidante. By chance one night, 37-year-old Rafi meets an attractive 23-year-old guy named David Bloomberg (Bryan Greenberg). He gets up the guts to ask Rafi out and they soon fall in love.
The catch is, David is Lisa's son and Lisa doesn't know he's hooked up with Rafi. So while Lisa is telling Rafi that it's great she's going with this young guy and to live life to the hilt, she's also telling her son that he shouldn't be in a relationship with an older woman, especially a woman who's not Jewish. Where's it all going to go?
Eventually Lisa realizes that Rafi's guy is David and David's older woman is Rafi, and she has to decide what the ethical and motherly right things to do are.
Essentially "Prime" tracks the hills and valleys of the love relationship while cutting back and forth to Lisa for perspective and laughs. Streep, looking appropriately dowdy, is just plain hilarious in scenes where Rafi describes her sex life, but the actress and the script don't simply use Lisa for laughs. There is sincere concern for her son and her patient.
The inevitable conflicts between youth and maturity arise eventually and love, as Woody has often shown, can't necessarily conquer all. If writer Younger can't quite cut to the marrow in the way Allen can (or at least could), he does a fine job of putting love's messiness in perspective.
There is also some of the same Upper East Side sense of reality that makes Allen's films seem as if they are made in a bubble at times. Everyone's a therapist or a painter or a fashion designer; everybody's got money or at least access to money; everyone's witty and well-spoken, all of which is just a bit too comfortable. But at the same time Younger shows a good sense of visual fun, too: The image of David's old country grandmother smacking herself over the head with a frying pan repeatedly is one of this year's best.
"Prime" doesn't smack you over the head with a frying pan. It offers an unlikely romance in a somewhat comic situation, finding both humor and emotional truth. If it never really draws blood, it at least wounds lightly and finds something to laugh at in the pain.
You can reach Tom Long at (313) 222-8879 or tlong@detnews.com.
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