Movie Review: The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them

Rated R

122 minutes

Directed by Ned Benson

Wine is an alcoholic drink. It's not something you've got attached to your side at all times. It's not a sentient being able to engage in conversation. You can just drink it instead of holding it in your hand swooshing it until you get drunk while your husband never gets a second of (memorable) screen time with it or you. You don't get so attached to wine that it seems like the passionate marriage of the family instead of you and your husband. Got it, Huppert? 

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby is messy, but not in a good way. The cinematography is blurry for an effect, but it isn't a good effect. It's obviously cut down, and when you know there are other cuts, it ruins the whole experience of the film. You can sense cuts and tell that there are elements missing. It has good components, and the two film concept for this film feels like it would fit it naturally because there are so many elements to this couple's life. 

Gone is a sense of relating to these characters. The couple may be poor, but the parents more than make up for that. All the parents are rich and wealthy and successful and are able to do anything, and it rubs off on Eleanor and Connor. Eleanor is this pretentious little girl who doesn't want to go to Yale because it's not pretty, walking around thinking woe is me and flipping her opinion of Connor back and forth because she becomes sad than infatuated with him back to sad throughout the whole movie. She's essentially the opposite of Eleanor Rigby, who in the Beatles song, is this lonely woman who dies and no one comes to her funeral. This character may feel lonely, but she's widely loved and adored, and if she were to die, lots of people would come. Meanwhile,  Connor is less pretentious, but he's really proud. So proud, he refutes an idea someone else has that he should take a loan from his magnate dad to help his flailing restaurant. As such, it just doesn't feel real.

Even though the film is a lost cause, there are some shining moments. James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, and Bill Hader all give great performances, with McAvoy and Chastain trying to add some realism to the events and succeeding even though the writing isn't there, while Hader's character is frankly the best written even though he has limited screen time. And there are some finely-tuned, restrained scenes that brought out genuine emotion. The opening scene had me thinking this was going to be a great film, oozing with love. The apartment scene about Eleanor and Connor's son was so raw and well handled that it almost had me forgiving the massive flaws. And there are choices made by the people in this film that make them feel like people.

In the end, this isn't a film for people like Eleanor Rigby of Beatles fame. It isn't a comforting friend where there are no others to be found. It isn't a sweet embrace of a partner to ease your mind (we were so close to breast it was maddening). It's just something that will nudge you hard, look behind kind of sorry, but doesn't take the time to apologize or get to know you. It just keeps walking, leaving you as lonely as you were before.

2.5/5

C-