Prime: Movie & DVD Review (2005)

(Originally published 2005)

The romantic comedy, “Prime,” features neither the prime of Meryl Streep nor the prime of Uma Thurman. So, in spite of its eye-catching title, which promises plenty given the quality of its A-list cast, audiences should forget about hoping to see either actress achieve the prime of, say, a certain Miss Jean Brodie. As good as Streep and Thurman are here, they have been better elsewhere.

The question at hand really is whether the movie is building toward the prime of writer-director Ben Younger, whose 2000 debut film, “Boiler Room,” channeled Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” in ways that “Prime” channels elements of Norman Jewison’s “Moonstruck” and the mid-to-late career of Woody Allen. That's a nice way of saying that Younger’s films are more studied than organic, though what’s also true is that they can’t be dismissed.

Like Allen, Younger is a Brooklyn-born New Yorker who uses the city as a character. His technique isn’t as deliberate as Allen’s, his characters aren’t as neurotic and his dialogue isn't as quotable or as clever. Still, within “Prime" are echoes of the elder director intertwined with a likable vibe that's Younger’s own.

This is a young man's movie, with confidence occasionally giving itself over to self-indulgence, weaknesses revealing themselves in the forced situations, a beginning that's oddly uninformed, as if something went missing in the editing bay. Thing is, Younger is so good with his actors, their performances become the key to this film’s modest success.

In “Prime,” Streep is Lisa Metzger, a Jewish therapist who finds herself saddled with a motherlode of problems thanks to her professional relationship with Rafi (Thurman), a troubled, 37-year-old divorcee pining for a child before her internal clock blows a fuse.

Complications ensue when Rafi meets David (Bryan Greenburg), a 23-year-old artist with whom she takes an immediate liking when they moon over each other outside a movie theater. A few dates later, a rejuvenated Rafi takes to Lisa’s couch, talking intimately about David, with Lisa approving enthusiastically until she starts to connect the dots, realizing that the man so busy satisfying Rafi emotionally and sexually is her own son, a twist freely revealed in the film’s advertising campaign.

For Lisa, conundrums unfold. Ethical dilemmas abound. Should she step out of her professional relationship with Rafi because she might no longer be able to be objective about Rafi's new beau, or should she just push forward and continue to treat Rafi, sensing the relationship can’t sustain itself because of the age difference?

This dilemma would like to be the heart of the movie, but really it fades next to the comedy of Streep’s discomfort (she acts with her eyes, the downward turn of her mouth) and Thurman’s heartfelt performance as Rafi, a woman facing mid-life in a city that celebrates youth and courts anonymity at a time when Rafi would prefer the opposite. As for Greenberg, he’s fine here, but interchangeable, and so not the perfect man for the role. Mirroring Younger, you sense his own prime is a ways away.

Grade: B-