In the "they don't make them like that anymore" category, the legendary Shirley MacLaine gets to flex her amazing acting talents in the new film "The Last Word," a metaphor-laden, love letter to life, and all of its pits and pratfalls.
In "The Last Word," MacLaine is Harriet Lauler, a once successful businesswoman in tight control of every aspect of her life. But leaving her obituary up to the whims of how a newspaper article might portray her as she starts to face her own mortality will be one place she doesn't have control. Unless, of course she CAN control it.
She marches herself into a newspaper, where, as the owner of an advertising firm and a high-powered advertising executive, she was part of the reason the small newspaper survived. She demands the paper's young obit writer be at her beck and call to craft the tome before she expires.
Anne Sherman (Amanda Seyfried) is the scribe she hand selects, who secretly hopes to pen her own novel one day, but faced with her own insecurity, she remains stuck in the trenches.
Lauler changes her life, and, she, of course, changes the octogenarian's sour outlook on the world.
Directed by Mark Pellington ("The Mothman Prophecies," "Henry Poole Is Here") from a script by Stuart Ross Fink, "The Last Word" is one of those nuanced films that is filled with beauty from every angle – the loving way that the camera captures MacLaine's moments – credit director of photography Eric Koretz and Pellington.
Then there is MacLaine herself, who adds so many dimensions to Lauler it is easy to overlook some of the faults of Fink's script, which can sometimes clichéd.
Another character in the film is a soundtrack that is so wonderfully rendered to speak to the characters' situations, that you can't help get lost in it. Lauler's love of music, especially vinyl records, shows the turning point where the curmudgeonly control freak begins to realize what her life represented in the grand scheme of things. For Seyfried's character, young, indie rock songs show her desire to break out.
The soundtrack is packed with unusual and lesser-known artists, which I'll name here, because you'll want to find them on Spotify. Look up and listen to The Regrettes, Blood, Witch, Amnesty and Lady Lamb.
And, for an indie film, there are some A-list actors who can stand up to the acting chops of MacLaine, including the incomparable character actor Philip Baker Hall as Edward, Shirley’s ex-husband, Anne Heche as Harriet’s daughter, Elizabeth, and Tom Everett Scott in the role of Anne’s boss, Ronald Odom.
The two women's journeys seem to move at a clip in the film, but there are opportunities missed in the script, where predictability takes a front seat, including an atypical road trip, which could have been left on the cutting room floor without much being lost. And Lauler's discovery of a foul-mouthed, at-risk kid enrolled in an afterschool program. Annjewel Lee Dixon is cute, but detracts from the story of the two women. The character is so precocious, she's borders on annoying.
Yet, there are two reasons to overlook what makes "The Last Word" less than perfect – namely MacLaine and Seyfried, who relish "The Last Word" script, and breathe life into this coming of age story.
"The Last Word" opens 3/24 in Miami / Ft. Lauderdale. In Miami: AMC Aventura 24, AMC Sunset Place 24, Regal South Beach 18, Landmark at Merrick Park 7 In Broward County: Regal Oakwood, The Classic Gateway, AMC Pompano Beach 18, Regal Magnolia Place.
