LIFE WITHOUT DICK
US, 2022, 100 minutes, Colour.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Harry Connick Jr, Johnny Knoxville, Craig Ferguson, Teri Garr, Geoffrey Blake, John Eddins, Claudia Schiffer, David Koechner, Lee Garlington, Holmes Osbourne.
Directed by Bix Skahill.
In no way to be taken seriously. For audiences who like a very, very light comedy with some twists, some romance, some pratfalls and silliness, 100 minutes to entertain them.
However, with two very ditzy central characters, some basic dialogue, some funny moments, many silly moments, many audiences have found it a mixture of too much and too little.
Sarah Jessica Parker, so well-known from Sex and the City, plays Colleen, an ingenuous would-be painter (framed single colours), with a private detective boyfriend, Dick, Johnny Knoxville, is upset at his packing to leave, holds a gun at him, shoots, and he had put a bullet in the gun. She hides the body in the basement.
There are all kinds of side issues throughout the film though, at the end, one can admire the various strands of the screenplay coming together. She has visited medium, Teri Garr, misinterprets Dick’s behaviour, flashbacks to him at a bar, the encounter with two straightfaced detectives (who do provide some deadpan comedy), is the target of the local Irish Mafia chief, Craig Ferguson, who has employed a singer, his brother-in-law, Daniel, Harry Connick Jr, whose girlfriend, Claudia Schiffer, had laughed at him, so he is becoming a hitman but is unable to shoot straight and is reluctant to shoot. Dick was his target. He visits Colleen and the romance and the complications start. Especially as, we expect in the romantic scene, that she volunteers to do all the shooting which is not seen on screen.
The romance progresses as do the success of the hits. Colleen is in love and conscienceless.
Of course, the romantic complications, the former girlfriend turning up, Colleen misinterpreting, the owner of the yard where the bodies are buried, David Koechner, confesses. Daniel gets his audition, Colleen thinking to shoot him, the revelations about the Mafia boss and a climax after the singing of Danny Boy.
Perhaps, that makes it sound better than it actually is!
