The inoffensive but unsatisfying On the Rocks, which can technically be described as a romantic comedy, wastes of the talents of Sofia Coppola, Bill Murry and Rashida Jones.
Laura (Rashida Jones) suspects that her husband Dean (Marlon Wayans), the striving CEO of a startup, is cheating on her. Her father Felix (Bill Murray), a worldly art dealer and serial womanizer, encourages her to stalk Dean, and propels them into increasingly crazy dad-daughter escapades.
The problem is that the suspicious wife plot is so tired that not even the considerable talents of Murray and Jones can make it sparkle. From Shakespeare through Howard Hawks to I Love Lucy, we’ve seen comedies based on mistaken perceptions, so we should expect SOME new element or nuance. This is, after all, from the writer-director of The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. The dad-daughter issues in On the Rocks just aren’t enough.
I did enjoy the character of Felix, for whom wordly is a gross understatement. Completely at home with the billionaire class, he also knows every cop, concierge and maître d’, and glides smoothly among all of them with charm and craftiness. He also can’t resist hitting on anybody without a visible Adam’s apple.
Murray is winning as Felix, but he can’t elevate the predictable screenplay. As we watched On the Rocks, I said to The Wife, “I’ve always said that I could watch Blil Murray reading the phone book, but this IS Bill Murray reading the phone book.”
On the Rocks is streaming on AppleTV.