Highly personal character-driven films really rely on the character in question to be interesting enough — or quirky enough, sexy enough, scary enough or something else enough — to keep our attention through the minutiae of their lives.  I’m on the fence about Marnie Minervini (Susan Sarandon).  Marnie is a lonely woman of a certain age, having recently lost her Italian husband, and the only thing she knows to do is to hover around her adult daughter Lori (Rose Byrne).  The trouble is that Lori just wants to be left alone to grieve and wallow in her own personal hell.

Lorene Scafaria is the writer-director, basing this script upon her own experience (as the Lori character) when, during her first movie, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (which I liked), her father died and her mother attended the filming to comfort her and help get her through the experience.  Scafaria learned firsthand how difficult it is to unexpectedly lose a parent, and this film is a tribute of sorts to her mother, and all mothers everywhere, who may be “meddlers,” but who always mean well.  It’s hard to fault a film with this type of intent, which is all too uncommon in the industry.

And yet this movie did not thrill me.  Marnie is exasperating, not just to her daughter, but to the audience.  And Lori is worse; while the film dotes on Marnie’s mini-adventures, it prefers to portray her daughter as a thoroughly depressed woman who, while professionally successful, is a total mess on the personal side.  For the most part I didn’t care for Lori at all — I think writer-director Scafaria short-changed herself in the translation.  It’s one thing to portray a character as being troubled, but it’s something else to cause the audience to actively dislike that character, and I think it damages the film.

I do realize that I am not the film’s intended audience.  This is a women’s picture first and foremost, celebrating the bond that exists between mother and daughter.  As a man who was not really close to my own mother I can appreciate that fact, but not fully immerse myself into that situation.  So I believe women will get much more out of the film than I did.  Even so, however, I feel The Meddler is not quite a good movie.  It’s close, but it’s too polite (the women banter but barely fight, while J. K. Simmons is the gentlest biker since Aaron Eckhart in Erin Brockovich), and it omits important stuff (Lori never confronts her mother about paying for the other wedding, neglecting her dogs, avoiding their New York relatives or, well, being a meddler).  The film has lots of detail, but not enough depth.  ☆ ☆ 1/2.  14 May 2016.