On the Rocks

Sofia Cop­po­la has nev­er been shy about who she makes films for; she’s always said that her pri­ma­ry audi­ence is young women. Yet her films have tend­ed to present a very nar­row per­spec­tive, with a focus on white, beau­ti­ful, rich (or at the very least mid­dle class) women who have the funds to swan around Tokyo on a whim or are quite lit­er­al­ly the Queen of France.

After her 2017 ver­sion of The Beguiled was heav­i­ly crit­i­cised for com­plete­ly eras­ing race from the Amer­i­can Civ­il War set­ting, the direc­tor com­ment­ed, ​“I didn’t want to have a stereo­typ­i­cal char­ac­ter that wouldn’t have been respect­ful to that his­to­ry… And to not brush over it would have tak­en anoth­er film alto­geth­er. But I thought a lot about it. I was aware there was a deci­sion to make.”

Is On the Rocks her attempt at cor­rect­ing the over­whelm­ing white­ness in her films? Pos­si­bly. It’s cer­tain­ly the first time she’s cast a non-white lead.

Rashi­da Jones plays Lau­ra, an author in her late thir­ties bal­anc­ing rais­ing her two young daugh­ters with her career, while play­ing the role of sup­port­ive wife to her super­star busi­ness­man hus­band Dean (Mar­lon Wayans). Although the social con­text remains the same – poor peo­ple don’t real­ly exist in Coppola’s films – this is the first time Cop­po­la has cen­tred an old­er per­spec­tive; the chal­lenges and con­cerns which Lau­ra faces are dif­fer­ent from those we’ve seen in Coppola’s past work.

Chief of these is Laura’s grow­ing sus­pi­cion that her suave hus­band who is con­stant­ly away on busi­ness trips is hav­ing an affair. While she fer­ries her kids to class­es and makes small talk with the oth­er par­ents, her mind turns to what Dean might be get­ting up to, and she isn’t much put to ease when she meets his young, glam­orous female col­leagues. She calls her dad for advice; Felix (Bill Mur­ray), a debonair art deal­er, imme­di­ate­ly swings into town to pro­vide coun­sel, which may or may not be use­ful as his first instinct is to believe that every man is as rak­ish as he is.

A gen­tle screw­ball caper to uncov­er the truth unfolds across New York City, which seems a lit­tle blue and melan­choly under the eye of Philippe Le Sourd, who also lensed The Beguiled. While Los Ange­les always seemed like a sunkissed won­der­land, the Big Apple seems drea­ry now, reflec­tive of Laura’s own increas­ing apa­thy towards her life. It comes alive in the bars that Lau­ra and Felix vis­it togeth­er – lit­tle pock­ets of time­less lux­u­ry, can­dle-lit and adorned with eye-catch­ing curios. But for a Sofia Cop­po­la film, it def­i­nite­ly looks a lit­tle low-key.

After the South­ern goth­ic delights of her pre­vi­ous fea­ture, On the Rocks feels slight, too neat in its final act and gen­er­al­ly light on plot. But as a show­case for the charm­ing ban­ter between Jones and Mur­ray, it’s won­der­ful; Jones plays the straight woman as Mur­ray has oodles of fun as a loqua­cious wom­an­is­er who thinks he has the world on a string. The ulti­mate­ly incom­pat­i­ble views of old-timer Felix and his thor­ough­ly mod­ern daugh­ter (com­plete with Bernie 2016 stick­er on her door) often clash, and one can’t help but won­der if sim­i­lar con­ver­sa­tions are ever had among the dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions of the Cop­po­la family.

Even if it is the least ​“Sofia Cop­po­la” Sofia Cop­po­la film, there are still some trade­marks: Laura’s metic­u­lous­ly organ­ised desk, her envi­able wardrobe and some beau­ti­ful­ly com­posed shots remind us we’re still watch­ing a tal­ent­ed film­mak­er at work. In less­er hands the sto­ry might be out­landish or melo­dra­mat­ic, but some­how Cop­po­la makes it all plau­si­ble, even if the film could dig a lit­tle deep­er into the caus­es of Laura’s anx­i­eties. It also offers a few very lit­tle insight into how a mod­ern woman is sup­posed to have it all; when Dean con­de­scend­ing­ly tells Lau­ra she ​“has to make time for her­self” it feels like a moment for her to react, but instead she just hums an acknowledgement.

Even so, it’s a joy to spend some time with com­pa­ny this good. No film this year is more like­ly to make you crave the com­fort of a dark bar and some fine con­ver­sa­tion, or make you want to call Mum and Dad.