On Tubi yesterday, I rewatched The Meddler, a 2015 comedy written and directed by Lorene Scafaria. Susan Sarandon starred as Marnie, a recently widowed Brooklyn native who moves from New Jersey to Los Angeles to be close to her daughter Lori (Rose Byrne), a T.V. screenwriter. Marnie is financially set for life from her late husband’s inheritance to her, so she has a lot of free time and often butts into her daughter’s home and personal life, bugging her to get back together with her ex-boyfriend, who has already moved on with a new girlfriend. Lori is depressed over the breakup and hates her mother hovering over her, essentially telling her mom to get some hobbies. Marnie even visits her daughter’s therapist, but the therapist guides Marnie to figure out her own issues.
So she volunteers at the hospital, uses her finances to pay for the vow renewal ceremony of Lori’s friends, makes friends with an Apple Store employee and drives him to night school, and inadvertently becomes an extra on a film shoot. She also dates a retired cop (J.K. Simmons), who is divorced and is estranged from one of his daughters, and they connect over their issues as parents and boundaries with adult children.
It’s a fairly light movie, but I really liked it. There are recurring scenes where Marnie sings along to the same Beyoncé song in the car, and Sarandon’s Brooklyn accent sounds natural and not forced. There’s a fun scene where, after the cop shows her his chicken coop and gives her some eggs, she cooks an omelet, and the eggs are so delicious that she is mopping up the egg with bread to get every last taste from the plate.
I liked that even if Marnie does overstep her boundaries, she isn’t made out to be a cartoonish monster or oblivious to her actions, she comes off as a realistic character. She is grieving her husband, but still wants to live life and not live in the past, hence finding friends and a community in her L.A. life. It’s a really nice movie, and I’m glad I watched it again.
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