It’s comedy, it’s serious, it’s ‘Here Today’
Laura Benanti, Penn Badgley, Billy Crystal, Tiffany Haddish and Audrey Hsieh star in a scene from the movie Here Today. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. (CNS photo/Cara Howe, Sony Pictures)
By John Mulderig • Catholic News Service • Posted May 14, 2021
NEW YORK (CNS) In adapting his script partner Alan Zweibel’s short story “The Prize” into the seriocomedy “Here Today” (Sony), director and co-writer Billy Crystal sets out to blend breezy humor with poignant drama. Unfortunately, the film in which he also stars as aging TV comedy writer Charlie Burnz falls flat in both respects.
NEW YORK (CNS) In adapting his script partner Alan Zweibel s short story The Prize into the seriocomedy Here Today (Sony), director and co-writer Billy Crystal sets out to blend breezy humor with poignant drama. Unfortunately, the film in which he also stars as aging TV comedy writer Charlie Burnz falls flat in both respects.
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In Theaters: 05.07
The difference between a great drama and a weepie is sometimes a fine line and, at other times, is glaringly obvious.
Webster’s Dictionary traces the first use of the term “weepie” back to 1929. Most of the sentimental tropes, stock characters and a lot of the jokes in
Billy Crystal‘s saccharine and schmaltzy new film
Here Today go back at least that far.
Crystal (
City Slickers,
When Harry Met Sally…) stars as veteran comedy writer Charlie Burnz, who forms an unlikely friendship with New York singer Emma Payge (
Tiffany Haddish,
,
Night School). Emma the unlikely recipient of a prize to have lunch with the comedy legend, despite not knowing who he is gets off to a rocky start with Charlie. But before long, each finds in the other a sort of platonic soulmate, forging a deep bond that kicks the generation gap aside and redefines the meaning of friendship, love and trust. Emma enters into Charlie’s life a moment too soon, as he is about
Rolling Stone Menu ‘Here Today’: Tiffany Haddish and Billy Crystal Are a Rude Duo, Not an Odd Couple
Corny and cute: a welcome dish of rom-com nostalgia even if it’s more friend-romance than anything else
By
The doctor asks, “May I ask what your relationship is?” And Tiffany Haddish and Billy Crystal whose roles in their new comedy
Here Today are more fun to imagine if you pretend the actors are playing themselves, so we’ll keep calling them Tiffany Haddish and Billy Crystal say, in unison, “I dunno.” It’s one of the running, mild jokes of the movie that people can’t quite seem to make up their minds as to what’s going on between this unlikely-seeming pair. They’re either too polite to assume the obvious or too rude not to. Hence the fun in imagining that Haddish and Crystal are playing themselves fun which, because the movie more or less gets lost in its own, sticky-sweet emotional sauce, the audience may as well sneak into the proc