Today's movie post is a about a film that is designed to make you laugh, it will expect you to cry, it will force you to FEEL things, damn it!
Today's post is about a comedy-drama film directed and produced by Billy Crystal, from a screenplay that he wrote with Alan Zweibel.
Co-starring Billy Crystal and Tiffany Haddish, from 2021, this is Here Today.
Billy Crystal is Charlie Burnz, a legendary writer in show biz who has written for television, movies and the Broadway stage. An older man, he keeps busy working as a consulting writer on a weekly live comedy show and that novel that he just can’t bring himself to finish.
Or start.
Charlie is also in the early stages of dementia, a diagnosis known only to him and his doctor. He hasn’t told his friends or his co-workers or his family.
Circumstances bring him to contact with a young woman named Emma Payge (Tiffany Haddish), a singer with a band that’s busking in various clubs and even in the subway. Her wanna be writer ex-boyfriend won an auction to have lunch with Charlie Burnz so she gets revenge by stealing his lunch date.
Charlie and Emma get along well but things take a turn when she has a severe allergic reaction to shellfish and has to go to the hospital. Emma has no money or insurance and Charlie picks up the tab. When released from the hospital, Emma promises to pay Charlie back but he expects he will never see her again.
Well, he does.
Emma keeps popping back up in his life wostensibly with payments for her hospital care but dang it, she seems to really care about this old guy and their friendship continues to grow.
Charlie catches Emma performing with her band and she is very talented and really knows how to work the crowd. The band is starting to draw attention from important people that may give the band their first real break for genuine success.
But Emma has other things on her mind.
Emma begins to worry about Charlie and he confides in her about his dementia diagnosis. Emma accompanies Charlie to his doctor who confirms the worse, that his dementia is progressing as it inevitably does. He can still function for now but he needs someone to be with him, to provide help, guidance and care. Emma volunteers to be that person. Even though it means not going on tour with her band.
In addition to the looming darkness of his increasing dementia, Charlie carries the weight of grief and regret about his past. He allows himself to open up to Emma about Carrie, his wife and the love of his life and her death in car accident years ago. She was driving late at night on a road to their house in Connecticut and she wouldn’t have been alone or on the road at that late hour except for Charlie’s obsession with his work. Charlie’s daughter Francine blames Charlie for the death of her mother.
Charlie also has a son named Rex, so named because Carrie went into labor at a museum and gave birth to their son underneath a T-Rex skeleton.
Opening up to Emma helps Charlie focus and get started on his novel.
Emma meets the family when she accompanies Charlie to his granddaughter Lindsey's bat mitzvah.
Recurring question for Charlie and Emma through out the movie: are they dating? No, they are not. OK, there was that time they slept together. As in she fell asleep next to Charlie after he fell asleep.
However you define it, it's clear that these two very different people have genuine affection for each other as Emma stays by Charlie's side through his encroaching dementia.
Long story made short and as close as we're gonna get to a happy ending (because as I know too well that dementia is inevitable) is that the family is looped in on his diagnosis, Francine forgives her father and Emma is accepted as part of the family. Charlie finishes his novel before the full onset of his condition and sees an image of Carrie who smiles at him.
...
...
Sorry, got something in my eye.
Allergies, you know.
...
I am NOT crying!
You're crying!
Oh shut up!
...
OK, yes, this movie is maudlin and manipulative as hell but damn, I got caught up in this movie and mostly due to the relationship of Charlie and Emma.
We've all seen the story of the uptight white person who meets the gregarious black person who teaches the white person how to embrace joy and learn how to truly live and blah blah blah. But Here Today transcends that trope and that owes a lot to the performance of Tiffany Haddish as Emma Payge.
Yes, Emma is a gregarious black woman who knows how to party and will say what's on her mind. But it's her quiet moments, the ones where she is sincerely engaged when Charlie chooses to open up to her. She respects that this is hard for him to talk about these things and Emma's kindness and support are palpable. Tiffany Haddish steals the show both when she's being bold and when she's being quietly supportive.
Knowing Billy Crystal from his earliest days on Soap and Saturday Night Live and his movies like When Harry Met Sally, it's kind of a gobsmack to see him old now and playing a character targeted by the most egregious disease that comes from getting old. Billy's quips and one liners are as sharp as ever so that comedic magic is still there. But he also captivates with his dramatic turns, his sadness and regret over what he has loss, his fear over what he is about to lose and the frustration when the dementia hits him. The scene where his route walking from his apartment to the TV studio is disrupted and he has a meltdown over the simply instruction to move to the other side of the street is heartbreaking.
The young and more cynical might find Here Today to be trite or cliche.
But I was moved by it and might have enjoyed it more if wasn't for my allergies, you know.
...
I am NOT crying!
You're crying!
Oh shut up!
