Catch and Release

Erin Brockovich scribe Susannah Grant makes her directorial debut with Catch and Release, an unexpectedly gloomy and sincere dramedy about a mourner’s quest for new love and self discovery. Advertisers might be pitching the movie as romantic comedy a la Julia Roberts in her golden age, but this is really a frothier, less convincing little sister to something along the lines of Garden State. The sad eyes and soulful soundtrack fit the bill, but this whole film just can’t help but persistently feel just a few shades too sappy to really click dramatically. More importantly, Grant might have a knack for crafting clever dialogue, but as a director she’s a fairly unimaginative and sloppy first timer. The ending to this film plays like such a shoddy, awkward, and false conclusion of convenience that it sinks what I would have considered to be a solid film into something that’s only decent. If the mantra “a movie is only as good as its ending” applies, then this thing tanked.

So much works here, but so much misfires also. It’s admirable of Grant to have romantic comedy aspirations beyond the basic meet cute, get mad, get back together sort of game plan that most films of this nature employ. The formula is certainly the same, but there’s ample character and emotion to successfully fill out the clichéd narrative. What’s different here is that the events leading from point A to the inevitable and predictable point B are complicated in ways that fail to be transparent or obnoxious. The characters are sympathetic, flawed, and above all believable in many if not all of their convictions. They might be living in Julia Roberts-ville but they come from another planet entirely.

Jennifer Garner breaks hearts and beams with earnest effervescence as Gray Wheeler, a woman whose fiancé dies tragically shortly before they are due to wed. The film begins at his funeral and follows Gray from a defeated almost widow to her jubilant rebirth as a newly in the know woman able to accept the truth and keep on living. Part of that living involves her fiancé’s best friend Fritz (Timothy Olyphant) whom Gray has had only disdain for in the past, but who comes readily to her aid in her time of crisis. It’s a relationship that comes with enough genuine baggage to explain why it takes them so long to find the happiness we all know that they’re headed toward. It’s exciting for the simple fact that it is, shockingly enough, a romantic comedy romance with some actual depth. Also shocking is the unforeseen talent of Kevin Smith, who gets over being silent as close friend and secretly sulking boozer Sam. He is given both humorous and tender moments and Smith thrives as a likable onscreen presence. All the characters here come full of more information and deeper layers of personal connection than initially expected and it’s the discovery hat makes this film fun and actually involving. Even Juliette Lewis’s dim adulteress is provided a sincerity that a lesser film would reserve only for its barely believable heroine.

Catch and Release is a film about secrets and lies, but it also remains weary of truth’s complexities. From uncovering what’s beneath the surface, characters grow and develop, but they also must leave behind their old ways and relinquish the ideals they had imagined for themselves in precious moments past. The movie is genuinely good at times, but it also has every tired retread story arc that you might expect and a tremendously garbled ending that nearly compromises the entirety of its otherwise relatable story. Keep in mind that what you’re watching is imperfect and maybe your eyes can forgive the washed out conclusion, but generally this is as solid an entry in this genre as there has been in a long while.

Grade: B