A suicide attempt, hauntingly staged: Eleanor (Jessica Chastain) walks across a New York City bridge on a pleasant day, and at one point abruptly dodges out of frame. The startled reaction of a passerby tells us where she goes. The rest of the movie is an attempt by Eleanor—and her family, friends, and husband Conor (James McAvoy)—to figure out what happens after she survives her fall. This is the backbone of a film with an earnest disposition and a complicated release history.
The name: It’s explained that Eleanor’s parents are Beatles fans. That’s cute, although it’s hard to understand what the gimmick lends the movie other than gravity-by-association with the Fab Four’s plaintive song. And although Chastain continues her strong run of performances, Eleanor has less meat on her bones than some of the other characters here. El goes to live with the folks, so we see how she’s been shaped by her distracted father (William Hurt), a psychiatrist, and her wine-swigging mother (Isabelle Huppert), who likes reminding Eleanor what she sacrificed for family. Conor has more life: he’s managing a restaurant that is quietly failing, leading to charged encounters with his best pal/head chef (SNL stalwart Bill Hader) and bartender (Nina Arianda). This is happening in the shadow of his celebrated father (Ciaran Hinds), a restaurateur who hangs with the Rolling Stones when they’re in town. Ned Benson, making his feature debut as writer/director, is nothing if not sincere in tracking this grief-sodden situation. More sincere than coherent, perhaps, as a number of scenes seem so much like real life they’re actually pretty stock. And there’s something too easy about casting the great Viola Davis as a professor who doles out worldly wisdom to El along the way.
All this comes with an asterisk. Benson’s project bowed at the Toronto Film Festival last fall as two separate features: The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her and Him. (Am I the only person recalling the 1970s Liz Taylor/Richard Burton TV movies Divorce His and Divorce Hers? I am? Well, fine.) This film is a 122-minute compilation of Benson’s two features. The Weinstein Company has taken pains to let everyone know that Benson assembled Them himself, but its existence is puzzling: Surely the intriguing point of the original project was that the twin movies (which I haven’t seen) reflected on each other from contrasting perspectives. We’re told those films will be released this fall as well, but don’t hold your breath. In the meantime, Them is a less-than-convincing in-betweener. Opens Fri., Sept. 19 at Guild 45th, Pacific Place, and Lincoln Square. Rated R. 122 minutes.
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