Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B

It seems Sofia Coppola has a knack for making solid-B movies. They can be very different from each other, though they do all have a certain touch that gives it a vaguely recognizable sensibility specific to her. I didn’t even realize until looking back that every film of hers that I have reviewed, I have given a solid B: Marie Antoinette (2006); Somewhere (2010); The Bling Ring (2013); The Beguiled (2017). Her famous debut, Lost in Translation, came out in 2003, the year before I started reviewing movies—but, after all those that have followed, this year we get On the Rocks, and it would appear the streak remains unbroken.

Which is to say, I’m glad I saw it, and I enjoyed it; others likely will too, but I wouldn’t say it demands to be seen. And there is also “the 2020 effect,” where contrary to what had been the plan once upon a time, the film is not getting seen in movie theaters, but streaming. Granted, Sofia Coppola Films never had the kind of visual command that necessitated big-screen viewing anyway. On the other hand, so many films this year have been diverted to streaming platforms just so they could be seen by audiences, and although a clear majority of them are going to Netflix, which streaming service it goes to is otherwise largely a crap shoot. Amazon Prime Video? Hulu? Disney+? On the Rocks has gone to one of the newest platforms, with far less brand recognition than Disney, and thus arguably the most obscure. I signed up for the free trail week of Apple TV+ just so I could watch this movie.

Would it be worth you going to the trouble? If you already subscribe to Apple TV+, sure, On the Rocks is very much worth your time. If you don’t already subscribe, is it worth the extra trouble? That’s where it gets debatable.

On the Rocks is perfectly pleasant, and sweet, and in many ways a sort of wistful, almost nostalgic hang. Bill Murray basically helped launch Coppola’s career with Lost in Translation, and he returns here, in a somewhat similar part. This is also about an aging man and a much younger woman, although in this case it’s Rashida Jones, playing his daughter. Rashida plays Laura, who is overwhelmed by the scheduling demands of a young mother in New York City, and only slightly paranoid about the fidelity of her husband Dean (Marlon Wayans, an interesting casting choice).

Laura’s dad, Felix (Murray), is an aging playboy who can’t stop himself from flirting with, if not hitting on, virtually every woman he comes across. He fancies himself a man who understands how men’s brains work, and so he manages to fill Laura’s head with ideas of what constitutes so-called evidence of Dean cheating.

What I like most about On the Rocks is how it’s much more about Laura’s relationship with her father than about her relationship with her husband, and that the story doesn’t quite go where you might expect it to, especially for a movie this otherwise conventional, at least by Coppola’s usual standards. There is usually something more extreme about the circumstances in Sofia Coppola’s films, be it the degree of misfit her main characters are, or a fish-out-of-water setting in which the protagonist feels out of place. The trappings of On the Rocks, on the hand, are all very familiar, with very recognizable and regular characters in a present-day American city.

There is one clearly unintended effect, though, as of course no one making this movie would have known during filming that a global pandemic was coming. So, On the Rocks becomes a sort of pleasant time capsule of a time not so long ago, but still very different from now: no social distancing, no masks, just people taking the city of New York for granted. Remember hanging out at bars? Laura and Felix do that a lot in this movie. And even though it takes them on an ill-advised detour to Mexico and back, their journey is one in which they recognize each other’s flaws, and accept them for who they are anyway. It’s a touching thing to see things go that way, much more realistically than when a character goes through some kind of preposterous emotional epiphany. This movie is simply a pleasant watch, a low-key tale that is comforting in its way.

Overall: B