In the appealing comedy St. Vincent, Bill Murray plays the LAST guy – a hard-drinking, reckless gambling, whoring grump – that you’d ever leave your nine-year-old son with. Of course, circumstances force a desperate single mom (Melissa McCarthy) to do just that.
There’s plenty of comic potential in Murray’s talent and that set-up, but St. Vincent rises above the average comedy. The key is that – just like real life – these characters are complicated. Murray’s character isn’t just a hedonistic boor, McCarthy’s isn’t a saintly victim and her ex isn’t just a cartoonish meanie. Take all that authenticity, and toss in Chris O’Dowd as a priest with 21st Century irony and Naomi Watts as a pregnant Russian stripper, and the result is delightful. And the kid actor, Jaeden Lieberher, is very, very good.
Hey, St. Vincent is what it is – a sentimental but not too sentimental audience-pleaser, pure and simple.