Alex of Venice movie review & film summary (2015)

If you think I’m saying the movie is a tad predictable, I am. Additionally, I found it a little pat. Film people like to quote the late great director Jean Renoir, an adage about how the truly terrible thing in this world is that everyone has their reasons; Renoir the man didn’t actually say that, a character he played and wrote in “Rules of the Game” said it, but never mind; in any event, it always springs to mind when I see a movie such as this, which goes out of its way to be very scrupulous in not making villains out of any of its characters. “Alex of Venice” is a pleasant sit; it only rarely disturbs one’s precious bodily fluids with an irritating non-observation (Alex protests at one point that she doesn’t know how to grill a steak, and this is later confirmed, albeit in a way that suggests she couldn’t even try to extrapolate how raw meat interacts with fire), but it’s so even-tempered that a crankier viewer than myself might accuse it of slathering bland compassion on its characters like California sunshine pouring through a very tastefully-opened aperture. Or of over-indulging a variation of indie-pop humanism/compassion that had long curdled into cliché. 

Messina’s fondness for a bouncily mobile camera, happily taking in all the all-too-human interaction, increases the feeling of forced likeability. But the film isn’t completely clueless about how to use its assets. Winstead is entirely attractive and terrifically alert and alive throughout. The whole business with “The Cherry Orchard,” which seems a trifle know-somethingish at first, pays off with a really lovely climactic scene, which the ever-underrated Johnson brings home with a grace that’s both sly and warm-hearted. And the movie’s quirky setting pays off dividends where you least expect them. At such moments, the movie’s humanism finally seems unforced, and everything is the better for that.