Dir. Paul Dektor, US/Canada, 2022 Dur. 106 mins.
Cast: Peter Dinklage, Shirley MacLaine, Danny Glover, Matt Dillon, Kimberly Quinn
Review by Carlie Newman
University lecturer, Phil, has dreams: he hopes to be able to buy a real home rather than the apartment he rents near his college in Massachusetts. Teaching cultural economics to well-heeled young students, he visits expensive properties for sale being pushed by his friend (Matt Dillon) who is an estate agent. He can’t afford any of them.
Phil is amazed to find a huge property with an asking price of 5 million being offered in exchange for living in the granny flat of a wealthy widow, Astrid (Shirley MacLaine). In exchange for this live-in deal, Phil will inherit the whole property when she dies. Scraping together, the amount needed to complete the deal, Phil moves in.
There are a number of difficulties in doing so. Firstly, the granny flat is very basic. More worrying is the fact that he is introduced to two of Astrid’s kids. a female lawyer, Maggie (Kimberly Quinn) and Boris, a Greek plumber. Maggie tells Phil that she will contest Astrid‘s will. As can be imagined Phil soon realises that it will not be easy to gain possession of the widows large house.
How women fall for Phil and how he manages to work out his future, including losing his job as a lecturer at one point, forms the rest of this film. Phil is supposed to be irresistible to women and, while he is attractive and a good actor, there is no real charisma on show. Shirley MacLaine portrays the widow as a feisty woman, but there is no real depth to the character.
It is an interesting film, which should have been great, but just misses the mark.
