By Lindsi Hebert, Staff Reporter.
Directed by Theodore Melfi, “St. Vincent” takes an all new twist on the phrase “love thy neighbor”. Vincent, a stubbornly hedonistic old man, gets the job of babysitting his neighbor’s son Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher) for a fairly steep fee.
It starts out simple enough, when Vincent sees Oliver getting cut down by some bullies, he takes it on himself to show Oliver how to fight dirty. Over this and a few other events, like taking Oliver to bet on horse races and celebrating at a bar, the two begin to bond.
As Vincent and Oliver grow closer, Oliver begins to see past Vincent’s alcoholism, gambling addiction and chain smoking to see that Vincent was once a remarkable man. When life takes a turn for the worse, all Vincent has is Oliver, Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) and a hooker named Daka (Naomi Watts).
“St. Vincent” is one of those movies that you could write about for a school project and still like it afterwards. Bill Murray’s performance is great, because he’s put into that niche of “gross old guy that everybody still loves”. Predictably, he plays it well.
What’s more surprising is Melissa McCarthy’s performance. Normally she’s seen as the funny fat woman, like in the movies “Tammy” and “Identity Thief”. Her performance as Maggie, however, was a wonderful change of pace. Her character is struggling, was cheated on several times and is now trying to rebuild her life as a single mom. She shows her struggles and her weaknesses and still manages to be funny, and none of that comes from her appearance. Her character is a little more serious than the others, and it works wonderfully. 10,000 gummy bears for Melissa McCarthy!
Acting aside, “St. Vincent” is funny. Not just a chuckle every now and then, but actually laughing at jokes that just get funnier as the movie goes on. It’s not cheap humor like a kick in the groin, either, but smart dialogue and hilarious characters that make up something incredibly fun to watch.
Fair warning, this movie does get sad. I’m not going to tell you what happens, I just want you to be prepared for the possibility of you, your date or both of you getting a little teary eyed at parts. Nothing’s more awkward then when you both go out to eat afterwards and are sobbing so hard that the poor waiter can’t understand your orders, so just steel yourself up for some hard hitting emotional moments, with still even more humor thrown in because this IS supposed to be a comedy.
It’s worth going to the theaters to see “St. Vincent”. It’s worth renting the movie and then never giving it back to the video place. It’s even worth paying thirty bucks for the blu-ray. The acting is great, the dialog is smart and funny, it’s heartwarming when it needs to be heartwarming and bawdy when it needs to be bawdy. The soundtrack is catchy and the ending credits are fun to watch so stick around for those. All in all, go see this movie. You won’t regret it. On a scale of 1 to 10 gummy bears, with 10 being the highest, “St. Vincent” gets an 8.5.
