She Came to Me
Rebecca Miller explores some remarkable meetings of ordinary people in her fresh, funny, insightful and surprising comedy.
Music to his ears: Marisa Tomei, Levi and Peter Dinklage
She Came to Me is a film about writer’s block, statutory rape, Civil War reenactments, cleaning, addiction, opera, infidelity, germaphobia and love, but above all love. An opera composer and a tugboat captain walk into a bar. As it happens, they are both recovering from mental episodes, although that is merely a footnote in the story that follows. “She” is the unexpected muse to his creative impasse, yet they could hardly come from more different backgrounds. Yet it is her very uniqueness that unlocks his imagination. Furthermore, behind her garrulous nature and his fear of strangers, they are actually both human. But he – the opera composer Steven Lauddem (Peter Dinklage) – and she – the tugboat captain Katrina Trento (Marisa Tomei) – sound just two of the many chords of this human symphony. There’s Steven’s wife Patricia (Anne Hathaway), a psychiatrist who actually prefers detergent to analysis, her environmentally conscious 18-year-old son Julian (Evan Ellison), Julian’s 16-year-old girlfriend Tereza (Harlow Jane) and Tereza’s proud Polish mother Magdalena (Joanna Kulig) who is living with the court reporter Trey Ruffa (Brian d'Arcy James), a “pompous dictator.”
In today’s world of six degrees of estrangement we are all connected, united by our humanity, albeit divided by our class, beliefs and skill sets. The fun part is trying to connect the dots. The writer-director Rebecca Miller, daughter of the playwright Arthur Miller, knows a thing or two about drama and here she breathes authenticity into each of her characters, who are as conflicted, confused and as desperate to connect as we all are. Ms Miller, whose husband Daniel Day-Lewis has inhabited his own array of distinctive lives, seems equally at home here writing up the backstory of a stenographer, a nun or a nymphomaniac. When Patricia is formerly approached for sex by her husband, she replies, “Interesting idea. But, you know, Thursdays…” You can just imagine it. Likewise, it’s wonderful to hear Steven complaining to a singer of his opera that she is “smudging the syncopation.” These are real words that mean something very distinctive to their respective narrators.
On one level, She Came to Me is a farce, but it is a believable one, and a very funny one at that. It is also ineffably romantic and as unpredictable as the human beings it documents. In Brooklyn, where much of the action takes place, your unknown neighbour could be your saviour, if only you knew them. Rebecca Miller specialises in films about people and because she honours their reality, along with their quirks, she makes them resonate like sparks in a blackout. Peter Dinklage as Steven, at once troubled, imperious, vulnerable and brilliant, has never been better, while Anne Hathaway is hysterical as the psychiatrist with many more issues than her clients. The rest of the cast plays its face straight, which merely chucks fuel onto the comic fire.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Peter Dinklage, Marisa Tomei, Joanna Kulig, Brian d'Arcy James, Anne Hathaway, Harlow Jane, Evan A. Ellison, Judy Gold, Sam Levine, Sue Jean Kim, Chris Gethard, Levi.
Dir Rebecca Miller, Pro Damon Cardasis, Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon, Rebecca Miller, Len Blavatnik and Anne Hathaway, Screenplay Rebecca Miller, Ph Sam Levy, Pro Des Kim Jennings, Ed Sabine Hoffman, Music Bryce Dessner, Costumes Marina Draghici.
AI Film/Round Films/Killer Films/Somewhere Pictures-Vertical Entertainment/Sky Cinema.
102 mins. USA. 2023. US Rel: 6 October 2023. UK Rel: 20 November 2023. Cert. R.
