Movies: Tumbledown

A sweet gem of a movie that we stumbled upon while searching for something that wasn't, well, all the usually hyped crap we're so sick of.

Tumbledown stars Jason Sudeikis and Rebecca Hall, and also puts Blythe Danner to good supportive use, though I feel like there was a lot more story to the supporting cast and characters—as if maybe this could be a series of books, really, set in this small Maine town. But that's probably just the writer in me getting fanciful.

Hall plays Hannah, widow of an obscure folk musician, and Sudeikis plays Andrew, a professor who wants to write a book about Hannah's deceased husband. Hannah herself is trying to write her husband's biography but can't seem to organize her thoughts and feelings in any useful way, so she taps Andrew to help her pull the manuscript together.

Though things progress in a very predictable fashion, this is a cute-sweet film with good performances. I enjoy Hall as an actress in general; she's shown fine range in a variety of projects. And Sudeikis is still funny here, but he also proves he can do more than broad comedy.

I do wonder at Hollywood's being so convinced that any time two people [of the opposite sex] get together to work on something, it will unavoidably become a romance. I think I'll write a screenplay in which two people work together and are just friends despite all the pressure from people around them to become romantically involved. That, in my experience, is far more realistic.

Then again, I guess we don't go to movies for the realism.

This movie also reminds me of why I no longer live in the Northeast. Because it's fucking cold is why.

In short, a cute film well worth a look when you're tired of all the usual popcorn fare.