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The Last Mimzy
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by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
A- Rated R 124 min
In a stunning dramatic performance, Adam Sandler portrays Charlie Fineman, a man whose entire family was killed on one of the 9/11 planes that crashed into the twin towers. Charlie is suffering from chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). More significantly, he has disassociated the tragedy in his mind to the point of functioning at a low level of consciousness–marginal schizophrenia. Since his lawsuits were settled, he is a wealthy man. He lives in a roomy apartment, and spends his time roaming the streets of Manhattan on his motorized scooter, or continually redecorating the kitchen.
Written and directed by Mike Binder, whose deliberately slow pacing gave the actors plenty of time to affect nuances, bringing out their characters motivations, and in the case of Charlie, his deep need for a friend. Shot on location in Manhattan, Binder lets the characters tell the story from a masterfully written script. Indeed, as Charlie, Sandler proves that he can go deep into a character with an amazingly insightful performance.
Don Cheadle skillfully plays Charlie’s college roommate, Alan Johnson, who had not seen Charlie in years. Now running a successful dental practice, with an expensive townhouse and a beautiful wife, Janeane (Jada Pinkett Smith), he is the epitome of the successful urban professional. Johnson’s only complaint is his wife doesn’t give him enough space. That changes as circumstances in his life take a radical shift of purpose.
One day, Johnson spots Charlie on the street and tries to flag him down, but Charlie disappears into the throng. Later he sees him again and this time he stops Charlie. Clearly, Charlie is not in his right mind, but strangely, Johnson is drawn to him by his youthful sense of freedom, and offers to buy him a cup of coffee. Right after 9/11, Johnson had heard about Charlie’s tragedy but is shocked by how this terrible trauma has adversely affected him. He is a broken man, who refuses to face his grief or his memories of his family.
The premise focuses on how these two friends meet, years later, at a time in both their lives when they desperately need each other. Of course, Charlie’s needs outweigh Johnson’s petty concerns about space. However, Charlie craves companionship and Johnson did not know his family. Charlie cut off all ties with anyone who knew his family, including his former best friend, and his in-laws. Charlie has reverted back to his younger years, before he had a family.
In a key scene, Charlie causes a disruption at Johnson’s dental clinic, showing out-of-control anger which underscored Charlie’s desperate cry for therapy. Johnson tells his therapist friend, Dr. Angela Oakhurst (Liv Tyler), about Charlie and she advises him to get him help, which is ultimately up to Charlie. He’s rich and can do anything he wants. Lately, though, he has taken a turn for the worse, losing all contact with consensus reality.
Although Johnson is trying to help Charlie by being his friend and adviser, the relationship is putting a strain on Johnson’s marriage. He’s spending more time with Charlie than his wife. Secretly, Johnson is enjoying this wild time with his crazy friend. They do fun things together, and finally, Johnson is getting his much needed space away from his overbearing wife.
Binder’s script uses natural humor to overcome any maudlin leanings in the scenario. Most of the humor comes from Cheadle’s character Johnson.
Liv Tyler is a cast stand out as Charlie’s therapist Dr. Oakhurst. Her gentle manner and sympathetic persona help Charlie to finally make a breakthrough by talking about his family.
The strongest point Binder’s script makes is Charlie and Johnson’s friendship in itself has a healing effect on Charlie, without over dramatizing the story. The two unlikely friends are a hoot together in an oddly comedic way, without going for the laugh jugular. It’s an endearing story of a truly loving friendship without strings attached.
Writer-director Mike Binder intended for the film’s setting to be as much of a character as the actors. Many of the exterior shots take advantage of New York’s restaurants and bars, cinemas and apartment buildings. Rather than the landmarks and vistas that make the city famous, Binder focuses his lens on the everyday places that give the city its character.
“All of those sequences where Charlie and Alan go scootering at night, eating Chinese at three in the morning – all of that is part of how a person would live in New York were they a little bit lonely and troubled or just wanting freedom. The city comes to represent a lot about the way they feel,” says actress Saffron Burrows.
The crew covered a lot of ground over nearly a month of shooting. “We used every opportunity to get as much of the exteriors, backgrounds and tastes of New York as we could – everything up to the front door of the buildings,” comments Jack Binder. Spending long nights in the East Village, where the bulk of the action was filmed, the crew captured the soul of the city.
One of the reasons that the story is set in New York is that Reign Over Me was born out of Mike Binder’s experiences and observances on a day of tragedy. The writer-director was in New York on September 11th, 2001. “I wandered the streets, seeing people who had lost their whole lives in one day,” he recalls. “A year-and-a-half later, I was back in New York with my family, remembering all those people I had seen. I kept thinking that for a lot of them, that day never ended – their trauma was ongoing. That sparked the idea to do a story about a survivor, years on, and the people in his life who pull him through.”
This nascent script idea resonated with Binder’s longtime friend and producer Michael Rotenberg, who was with Binder on that fateful day in New York. “In one chilling moment, a person’s whole life can change,” he says. “Whether it’s 9/11, the tsunami, or another calamitous event, the randomness of fate can leave a person stripped of all they love. Then, after a few weeks after a period of time during which it seems the whole world is standing by their side, these individuals are left on their own to make sense of their situation.”
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