You could watch the trailer for Prime and save yourself some time and cash, of course that seems to be the case with most movies these days. Trailers purposefully show as much of the movie as possible to get the intended audience comfortable. What’s that worth though? Aren’t people always more interested to see a story they haven’t quite figured out? Clearly these thousands of people who spend billions of dollars must know more than me. I just think this film would have been far more interesting had I not known exactly where the story would be halfway through based on the only trailer I saw.
Prime deals with Uma Thurman as Rafael, a woman seeing a shrink when she finds Dr. Metzger (Meryl Streep) who also happens to be the mother of Rafael’s new boy toy David Bloomberg (Bryan Greenberg). The 16 years separating Rafael and David provide the other main obstacle. This mom/therapist plot device is handled well with a well handled “reveal” which could have gone a lot worse. I also enjoyed Zak Orth as Rafael’s friend Randall. What comedy there is, he tries to deliver.
Unfortunately, with a film billed as a comedy this story develops as much more of a straight drama than a comedy, which proves problematic. There are a few laughs but we mostly follow the trials and tribulations of the relationship between Rafael and David. Greenberg is really good here, it’s the first time I’ve seen him and based on this performance I have high hopes. Streep pretty much phones this one in and churns out an average performance.
My largest issue with this film is in the love story. It is another one of those high on sap, star-crossed lover syndromes that becomes tiresome and feels a little contrived. Just get together or don’t already. Prime is somewhat gimmicky and partly cheese felt schlock due to this factor. Prime is a bit typical but I think you get the point already.
Prime won’t be making a dent at the box office; it’s the third best romantic comedy out this weekend. On top of that, it’s not a comedy, meaning there is no true audience. This leads me back to my original question about trailers and a possible solution. Perhaps the trailer shows the entire movie because there is no movie to market and no particular audience to aim for. In that case the perfect audience for this film would be the kind that doesn’t think too hard.
