HELEN HUNT TAKES SOME CHANCES
Actor with long history in comedy proves adept at directing it, too
For a female actor in Hollywood to be cast with a younger love interest, all she has to do is write, direct, produce and star in the project herself. It looks like that’s what Helen Hunt was up to in this, her second feature as director — her first was Then She Found Me, back in 2007 — but in fact there’s much more going on in this story of an overprotective mother who learns to allow her right brain to let loose during an impromptu trip to the left coast.
Early scenes introduce us to Jackie (Hunt) and Angelo, played by the excellent Aussie actor, Brenton Thwaites. He’s her son, not her love interest, though you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise as they bicker and talk over each other like an old married couple. Their arguments, peppered with literary shorthand — “Cormac McCarthy!” “Joseph Campbell!” — quickly place each as a certain type of well-off, neurotic New York writer who, if they ever think of Los Angeles, do so in the same way one ponders quicksand or a bear cave.
Yet that’s exactly where Angelo decides to go, crashing with his estranged father and the man’s second family after dropping out of university before it starts. Jackie follows, bringing her cellphone and maintaining the fiction that she’s still in New York by barking out “I’m on the West Side! Wait, going into a tunnel!” to her publishing-company bosses.
She confesses to Angelo only after the limo she’s all but hijacked rear-ends her son’s car as she spies on him from the back seat. Maintaining her indignity if not her dignity, she huffs: “Don’t act like I’m the only crazy one!”
In a twist that seems too tidy until it’s revealed to be otherwise, Angelo and Jackie each seem to find a guru of sorts on the beaches of Santa Monica. Hers is Ian (Luke Wilson), a surfing instructor whose no-guff mannerisms are clearly just what she needs. One weird moment finds Ian having to pee on her foot to relieve the pain of a sea urchin barb — it is head and shoulders (and bladder) above the bizarre version we saw a few years ago with Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron in The Paperboy.
Hunt has a long history in comedy, but Ride reveals that she can direct it as well as perform it. Her character is an editor and language maven who knows when to use swum rather than swam; corrects children who say they’re good instead of well; and just about loses it on her chauffeur when he utters the non-word, irregardless.
And that overbearing quality, which makes her rather unlikable, if also consistently funny, is explained halfway through the film’s 93 minutes in one of those simple scenes that has us re-reeling the story in our minds to reinterpret her actions, not least the film’s unusual opening moments, which take place when Angelo is just a few years old.
Ride almost earns its schmaltzy ending, though its message — Zen surfing lessons and a bit of pot can help unwind and undo East Coast hang-ups — may strike some as a touch pat. Then again, Hunt was born and raised in L.A. She’s also 53 and taking some chances here, not only with her role in the film but her role as filmmaker. I’m prepared to cut her some slack.