GOING BY THE BOOK
Best Sellers is a predictable story, but the acting and humour lift it up
A misunderstanding. A revelation. A heartfelt discovery. A cranky curmudgeon with a heart of gold, a drinking problem and financial worries. A flinty career woman secretly afraid she doesn't have what it takes. A cat. I don't want to say that Best Sellers reads like something crafted by a first-time screenwriter fresh out of a creative writing course, but ...
Best Sellers is indeed a firsttime feature from director Lina Roessler, and a first produced screenplay by Anthony Grieco.
It's predictable as hell, but not horrible. And it's helped immensely by the talents of Michael Caine as the cranky curmudgeon, a one-hit-author named Harris Shaw whose first words in the movie (into the phone he's just answered) are: “He's dead. Bugger off!”
Aubrey Plaza also excels as the flinty career woman, Lucy Stanbridge, whose father left her a publishing empire that has been steadily declining in the years since. Lucy and her assistant Rachel (Ellen Wong) are at their wits' end when they discover a decades-old contract between the elder Stanbridge and Shaw. Seems the author was on the hook for two books, but only ever delivered one.
There are several directions the movie could go at this juncture. We could follow Lucy as she tries to convince the reluctant author to pen another novel, or helps him through its construction.
But Shaw already has a manuscript ready to go, a dystopian fiction with the Cronenbergian title The Future is X-rated.
His only caveat is that he won't accept any edits. And when he reluctantly agrees to a publicity tour, he frustrates his publisher with his provocative antics, which include peeing on the book.
Of course, certain hipsters go nuts for this type of subversive behaviour, and the book develops a following in spite of its reluctant author. And certain moviegoers are in thrall to the charms of Caine and/or Plaza. I don't blame them. Best Sellers has some genuinely sincere moments and more than a few laughs, including one from Veronica Ferres as an author who pitches a book about “a marriage on the rocks,” in which a couple tries to save their relationship by climbing the world's highest mountain together.
“So, Nicholas Sparks meets
Jon Krakauer,” says Rachel.
The author nods and says she's already got the title: For Everest. If they ever make a movie out of that one, please let me know.