Mack & Rita | |
---|---|
Directed by | Katie Aselton |
Written by |
|
Produced by |
|
Starring | |
Cinematography | Sean McElwee |
Edited by | Michael A. Webber |
Music by | Leo Birenberg |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | Gravitas Premiere |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 95 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $500,000 [1] |
Box office | $2.7 million [2] [3] |
Mack & Rita is a 2022 American comedy film directed by Katie Aselton, from a screenplay by Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh. The plot follows a 30-year-old woman (Elizabeth Lail) who wakes up as her 70-year-old self (Diane Keaton) after a bachelorette party. Taylour Paige, Loretta Devine, Amy Hill, Lois Smith, Wendie Malick, Simon Rex, Martin Short, and Dustin Milligan also star. The film was released on August 12, 2022, by Gravitas Premiere, to negative reviews from critics, including a worst actress nomination for Keaton, [4] but the performances of Paige and Milligan were praised.
Thirty-year-old Mack Martin reluctantly joins a Palm Springs bachelorette trip for her best friend Carla, but then decides not to go to the event. Instead she finds a tent and does a past life regression and winds up as her seventy-year-old self. Freed from the constraints of other people's expectations, Rita comes into her own, becoming an unlikely social media sensation, and sparks a tentative romance with Mack's dog-sitter, Jack.
The film initially began development in January 2020, but fell apart amid the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. That October, producer Alex Saks approached director Katie Aselton saying she had secured about $500,000 of funding. [1] In March 2021, it was announced Diane Keaton, Elizabeth Lail, Taylour Paige, Dustin Milligan, Simon Rex, Nicole Byer, Patti Harrison, Loretta Devine, Wendie Malick, Lois Smith and Amy Hill had joined the cast of the film, with a screenplay by Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh. [5] Shortly after, it was reported that Elizabeth Lail joined to the cast. [6] [7]
Principal photography began on March 25, 2021 and concluded on April 23, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. [8] Due to a limited production budget and the ongoing pandemic, several changes had to be made to the script during shooting, including the forced removal of a Coachella sequence due to the event's cancellation and combining days of shooting into one, as well as not being able to have chemistry tests between the actors prior to filming. [1]
In April 2022, Gravitas Premiere acquired distribution rights to the film, and set it for an August 12, 2022, release. [9] The red carpet took place at the NeueHouse in Los Angeles, California in August 10, 2022. [10]
The film made $310,000 from 1,930 theaters on its first day. [11] It went on to debut to $1.1 million. [12]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 23% of 64 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.3/10.The website's consensus reads: "Diane Keaton gives Mack & Rita her all, but this cloying comedy lets her down at nearly every turn." [13] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 49 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. [14] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak gave the film a 61% overall positive score, with 46% saying they would definitely recommend it. [11] [12]
Lisa Kennedy of The New York Times commended Aselton's "unexpected beats" as a director for capturing the "esprit de girlfriends" quality of Insecure , despite borrowing from Nancy Meyers' "rom-com catalog of upscale homes." [15] Nell Minow, writing for RogerEbert.com, gave credit to Paige and Milligan's performances but wrote that "[T]he film's promising setup and excellent cast are let down by a script so forgettable that even to try to summarize it is to feel it dissolve from memory." [16] Katie Walsh of the Los Angeles Times was also critical of the film's script, saying it "ditches character establishment and clear conflict for fish-out-of-water physical comedy and some vaguely affirmative lessons about learning to be yourself, unapologetically." [17] The A.V. Club 's Courtney Howard and Entertainment Weekly 's Leah Greenblatt both gave the movie an overall C+ grade, the former saying it followed the same "whimsical fantasy boilerplate" of the body-swap subgenre with similar themes of "confidence, regret and friendship" and the latter calling it "a body-swap comedy so daffy and weightless it nearly levitates." [18] [19] Amy Nicholson of Variety called it "a bewildering generational culture-war comedy", criticizing the mixed messages on agism and the "underwritten" roles given to the supporting cast. [20]
Diane Keaton is an American actress. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for a Tony Award and two Emmy Awards. She was honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 2007 and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2017.
Wendie Malick is an American actress and former fashion model, known for her roles in various television comedies. She starred as Judith Tupper Stone in the HBO sitcom Dream On, and as Nina Van Horn in the NBC sitcom Just Shoot Me!, for which she was nominated for two Primetime Emmys and a Golden Globe Award.
Robert LaSardo is an American character actor.
Kate Noelle Holmes is an American actress. She first achieved fame as Joey Potter on the television series Dawson's Creek (1998–2003).
Kathryn Aselton is an American actress, film director and producer. She directed and co-starred in The Freebie, which was shown in the non-competition "Next" category at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010. She also starred in the FX sitcom The League for its seven-season run from 2009 to 2015, and in the first two seasons of FX's Marvel Comics X-Men drama Legion.
Taylour Dominique Paige-Angulo is an American actress and dancer. She is best known for her role as Aziah "Zola" King in the film Zola (2020) which won her the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. Other notable performances include her role as Ahsha Hayes in the VH1 sports drama series Hit the Floor, Jean of the Joneses (2016), White Boy Rick (2018), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020), and Boogie (2021).
Elizabeth Dean Lail is an American actress. She played the recurring role of Anna in the fantasy adventure series Once Upon a Time (2014), and starred as Amy Hughes in the supernatural series Dead of Summer (2016). Lail starred as Guinevere Beck in the psychological thriller series You (2018–2019), and as Jenny Banks in the NBC drama series Ordinary Joe (2021–2022). She portrayed Vanessa Shelly in the film adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy's (2023).
Book Club is a 2018 American romantic comedy film directed by Bill Holderman, who co-wrote the screenplay with Erin Simms. The film stars Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen as four friends who read Fifty Shades of Grey as part of their monthly book club, and subsequently begin to change how they view their personal relationships.
Poms is a 2019 American comedy film directed by Zara Hayes, starring Diane Keaton, Jacki Weaver, Pam Grier, Celia Weston, Alisha Boe, Phyllis Somerville, Charlie Tahan, Bruce McGill, and Rhea Perlman. The film follows a group of women from a retirement community who decide to start a cheerleading squad. It was theatrically released in North America on May 10, 2019, by STX Entertainment.
Zola is a 2020 American black comedy crime film directed by Janicza Bravo and co-written by Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris. It is based on a viral Twitter thread from 2015 by Aziah "Zola" King and the resulting Rolling Stone article "Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted" by David Kushner. Starring Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun, and Colman Domingo, the film follows a part-time stripper who is convinced by her new friend to go on a roadtrip to Tampa, Florida to earn money dancing, only to get in over her head.
Gravitas Ventures is an film distribution company owned by Anthem Sports & Entertainment. The company was founded by Nolan Gallagher in Los Angeles, California in 2006 and moved its headquarters to Cleveland, Ohio in 2019. It focuses on the distribution of Independent feature films and documentaries.
Katie Silberman is an American screenwriter and film producer. She is most known for writing the screenplays to Set It Up (2018), Booksmart (2019), and Don't Worry Darling (2022).
Boogie is a 2021 American sports drama film written and directed by Eddie Huang in his directorial debut. It stars Taylor Takahashi, Taylour Paige, Pop Smoke, and Jorge Lendeborg Jr. The film marks the first and only acting film appearance by Pop Smoke before his death in February 2020. It was released on March 5, 2021, by Focus Features. The film received mixed reviews from critics and has grossed $4.3 million.
The Unholy is a 2021 American supernatural horror film written, produced, and directed by Evan Spiliotopoulos, based on the 1983 novel Shrine by James Herbert. Produced by Sam Raimi through his Ghost House Pictures banner, it stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Katie Aselton, William Sadler, Diogo Morgado, Cricket Brown, and Cary Elwes. The film follows on a disgraced journalist (Morgan) who discovers a series of seemingly divine miracles in a small New England town and uses them to resurrect his career, though those "miracles" may have a much darker source.
Love, Weddings & Other Disasters is a 2020 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Dennis Dugan, from a story by Dugan, Eileen Conn and Larry Miller. It stars Diane Keaton, Jeremy Irons, Maggie Grace, Diego Boneta and Andrew Bachelor.
The Toxic Avenger is a 2023 American superhero comedy horror film written and directed by Macon Blair. It is the fifth installment in The Toxic Avenger film series. The film is produced by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, who also produced the previous films in the series. It stars Peter Dinklage as the title character, alongside Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Kevin Bacon, Sarah Niles, Julia Davis, Julian Kostov, and Elijah Wood. The film premiered as the opening film of Fantastic Fest on September 21, 2023.
Brothers is an upcoming American comedy film directed by Max Barbakow with a screenplay by Macon Blair from a story by Etan Cohen. The film stars Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage as the titular siblings and is produced by Legendary Pictures. The film will be released by TriStar Pictures.
Book Club: The Next Chapter is a 2023 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Bill Holderman. It serves as a sequel to Book Club (2018). The film stars Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Giancarlo Giannini, Andy García, and Don Johnson.
an alarming "D+" grade on Cinema Score indicates that most of those ticket buyers were not satisfied