Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton star in a Rob Reiner film. I’m sorry, is it 1984 again?
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“And So it Goes” is the story of Oren Little, a hard hearted property owner whose world is forever changed when he must take care of a grand daughter he didn’t even know he had. Michael Douglas stars as the cranky grandpa and Diane Keaton joins him as the kind hearted neighbor who helps him through, with Rob Reiner behind the camera leading the way.
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Now I want to be careful right up front to say I love all three of these people, Douglas and Keaton are superstars and have the filmographies to back it up, and Reiner directed “The Princess Bride” for pete’s sake, so he has a free pass for the rest of eternity as far as I’m concerned. And honestly, if there is a good thing about the movie, it’s in his lighthearted approach and the way he emphasises a couple of the funnier moments and lines of the script. But wow is this movie hard to sit through otherwise.
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I think it mostly comes down to that it just doesn’t go anywhere. At least nowhere fast. Now, don’t get me wrong, you can actually make a great movie with slow pacing or a slowly developing story, but it’s really hard to make one with both! If you are going to take a methodical pace to the movie, the story underneath it better be captivating, and likewise if you decide the best thing is to let your story points simmer, you better make sure the pace of the movie stays up to keep people interested. Otherwise, you end up with a movie that shuts down both the eyes and the brain, and that process is often known by another name…. sleep. But even if you could stay awake, the acting all around in this is stunted and just not funny, in fact it even teeters into that, so not funny it’s awkward stage at times. Reiner himself even takes on an acting role, and the results are, lets just say, unfortunate. Again, yes a few of these lines are light and clever, and I have such a respect for all of these people, but overall the feel is so saccharine and the pacing so methodical that there just isn’t anything to really hold onto. Not that it’s not a valuable message to see how love can open up hearts and break down walls, but we’ve seen that message in a million other movies and honestly every last one of them probably delivered it better.
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When it comes right down to it, “And So it Goes” is a simple, well meaning, endeavor that completely fails to connect because of it’s dreadfully slow story and pace. Even with a handful of lines that might give a chuckle I can’t see it going past a D+