When I saw the poster for this one, I was hooked. I grew up on the West Wing, so Allison Janney is a personal favorite, and once grown, I watched Girls, and Andrew Rannells struck my fancy with his humor. Seeing these two paired together, I wondered how the dynamic would play out, and I was not disappointed. Diane Patterson’s (Janney) husband has died. It wasn’t unexpected; he’d been sick for a while. But losing someone, even when you know it’s coming, isn’t easy. Grief is never easy. She’s working on scheduling the service and everything else that needs to be done. Her son is away working on a book in West Asia, trying to get an interview with a prisoner of war. Okay, it’s valid that maybe he can’t exactly be extricated from that region, so he sends his assistant instead. Jamie Simms (Rannells) had been on his way in a different direction, but when duty calls, he answers. Ding.
Jamie arrives, and it’s clear Diane is stressed. She’s lost her husband. Her son can’t show up, and instead of having anyone around her that she knows and loves to comfort her, she’s stuck with her son’s assistant. The beginning of the film is definitely written to not like Janney. She’s brusque, cranky. Diane’s being the bare minimum of helpful. And yet, as someone who has spent plenty of time entrenched in grief since my father passed, I couldn’t not like her. She’s living in a beautiful home that she and her husband had moved to in New Mexico so he could paint the beautiful landscapes. She makes quippy comments about the cat being taken by a hawk. Diane is obviously missing her person, and it becomes clear quickly that her relationship with her son is strained. Given where he’s located, messaging is his main source of communication to either her or Jamie, and he seems to message Jamie quite a lot. Certainly more than his mother. Ding. I learned to hate that damn chime.
Andrew Rannells and Allison Janney
What follows over the next few days is two people navigating complicated emotions while trying to get to know each other enough to make it a pleasant interaction for however long it lasts. For a minute, all seems to be going well. Jamie gets Diane a good discount on flowers. While the church won’t play her husband’s requested songs, she’s following his requests as much as she can. The letter left to her detailing his wishes was beautiful. It sounded like something I would write to my husband, teasing but loving. You can tell that they had a beautiful, loving marriage and that, despite the rough start, they were deeply committed to each other.
Andrew Rannells
Jamie opens up about being gay, just like Diane’s son. He talks about being the caretaker for both parents when they had cancer and lost them both. Jamie never got to actually tell them he was gay. Meanwhile, Diane always knew her son was. She caught him young but played dumb because she didn’t want to embarrass him. She wanted to give him the space to come to her. Diane also takes the opportunity to open up about her relationships. There is a tension in regards to her son, and when she finally reveals everything to the audience, it all clicks.
This is Diane’s second husband. This is not her son’s father. They divorced when he was younger because of cheating…on Diane’s end with her now second husband. Jamie knows some of this because, as you’d expect, he’s not just an assistant. He’s a long-term romantic interest. Nothing official, but there’s an emotional connection, and the two have had the “should we be a couple?” talk before. Diane admits that her first marriage had been loveless for a while, and when she found out her husband stepped out, she did the same. But her husband used it against her, poisoning their son telling him, “You’re on dad’s side.” From then on, he held a grudge against his own mother, distancing himself from her and her new husband. She couldn’t even attend the funeral of her first husband when he died. Her son forbade her from going. So it’s clear this relationship is fraught and distant. Ding.
However, we come to find out that her son isn’t exactly stuck where he is. In fact, he got extricated at one point, so he could have shown up…and Jamie tells him not to. Well, he doesn’t tell him not to; he tells him to do what’s best for himself, and given the tension in his relationship with his mother, maybe it’s best to stay away. Basically gives him an out for not wanting to come anyway. Understandably, this cracks the decently pleasant facade that had been formed. Her son is truly the only person left in her life that she has any closeness to. It’s clear she doesn’t like her neighbors. She didn’t go to church with her husband and share in that community. So the one person she’d actually like to see has been told to stay away. Ouch. The fallout argument is brutal, and Janney angrily following her husband’s wishes was amusing but also devastating. I truly can’t fathom the hole in my life if my husband died. He’s my everything. And this poor woman is alone. But so is Jamie…Ding. I am not kidding, I really hated hearing that fucking phone chime.
But as the funeral proceeds, Jamie shows up for her and even gets everything set up beforehand. Since the church wouldn’t play Barry White, Diane tries to solo it, and Jamie chimes in. It was a beautiful moment of showing up for someone. As the two repair the break, she imparts some mom wisdom for Jamie. He needs to let her son go. He’s never going to be the man Jamie wants him to be. He’ll never be emotionally committed. The same way he says, “Miss you, love you” in his texts to his mom. There’s no emotional connection anymore. It’s a passing thought. Jamie is convenient for him as an employee and a casual flirtation. But he’s not going to commit to Jamie, and she wisely tells him to stop holding onto that. Jamie wasn’t sent here; he came as a favor. As a “look at me doing this amazing thing for you that’s deep and emotional and hard, doesn’t that make you want to be with me?” And he needs to stop. Jamie needs to put himself first and find someone who is going to wholly want him and want to commit to him.
I certainly wasn’t expecting the film to become a deep commentary on romantic relationships but it’s a beautiful piece of advice for all of us. You cannot change people. You cannot act a certain way in hopes it will make them different or want something different. It’s a disservice to who you are and what you deserve from a relationship. When you’re in a healthy relationship, there is an aspect of change. Of growing with your person and evolving together, but you cannot force someone to change, and waiting for it will waste your life. Diane doesn’t want that for Jamie. The mom hug definitely healed something in me as well as the constant gorgeous desert shots. Jamie rides off and Diane sits with her husband’s urn, watching the sunset. Cue the tears.
Allison Janney
The cast was incredibly small, featuring only a few other names. Bonnie Hunt appears as a church elder and neighbor looking for her small dog who definitely got eaten by a hawk. The chicken bone scene killed me. And Oscar Nunez, a favorite of mine from The Office, appears as the pastor. Background actors for the church and wake were a mere handful, making most scenes just pure dialogue between Janney and Rannells. And they were remarkable. I went into this film expecting a commentary on grief and loneliness, and found that as well as commentary on relationships, knowing yourself, boundaries, and love in all its shades. I highly recommend this film, especially if you have a wilted succulent. You’re probably overwatering it.
