In the movie She Came to MePeter Dinklage, the unforgettable star of the series Game Of Thrones (The iron Throne), plays a New York composer lacking inspiration. The actor is surrounded by a plethora of talented co-stars, including Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei. For that alone, this romantic comedy by Rebecca Miller should have been memorable. She is not.
However, his previous film, Maggie’s Planwith Greta Gerwig and Ethan Hawke, had proven that the screenwriter and director has real affinities with a genre that we believe, wrongly, to be easy to approach.
In She Came to Me, therefore, Peter Dinklage plays Steven Lauddem, whose last opera was too long ago already. We meet him on the night of a premiere — alas, not his. While he struggles to hide an anxiety attack, the guests quietly comment on his long professional absence while sipping their champagne. Not very sparkling, the sequel is hardly intoxicating.
Married to Patricia (Anne Hathaway), a therapist who is a neat freak, Peter one day follows her advice and goes for a walk around the city in search of an idea. Instead, he meets an unlikely muse in the person of Katrina (Marisa Tomei), the captain of a tugboat.
Indeed, in the wake of a prank with Katrina, Steven finally finds a second creative wind. The subject of his new opera? His recent extramarital affair. However, not content with hiding the truth from Patricia, Steven paints a very unflattering portrait of Katrina…
Forced eccentricity
From then on, the table was set for many bursts of voice and laughter. The former occur in due time, but the latter, much less so. The uncertain approach is primarily to blame.
It’s as if the filmmaker had hesitated, at each stage, between the modern tale, the matrimonial farce, and the witty New York comedy. A tone of false naivety, which is obviously meant to be charming, only adds a layer of artificiality. The same goes for the somewhat forced eccentricity of the characters.
A subplot concerning the thwarted loves of two young people, treated in a dramatic manner, seems to come from a different film.
In the circumstances, the interpreters acquit themselves of their task admirably. Peter Dinklage is unsurprisingly excellent, Anne Hathaway as well, although his score takes an unbelievable tangent in the third act.
However, it is Marisa Tomei who steals the show with a comico-dramatic brilliance which transcends the uneven quality of the proposal. It would have been to the film’s advantage if Rebecca Miller had made her its muse, well.