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Prime

For those three people who watched last year’s Unscripted on HBO and the occasional One Tree Hill viewer who isn’t tuning in just for a chance to see some uncomfortable scenes between future never-were spouses; Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush, you know who the hell Brian Greenberg is. For the rest, you will be left in wonder where this never before seen actor got a gig with Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep?

Beyond the mysterious casting, Prime offers a cast, with an overabundance of talent, something many romantic comedies today lack: Actual thought. Writer/Director Ben Younger makes light of an awkward situation involving Meryl Streep as therapist and confidant to Uma Thurman’s recently divorced and just a hop, skip and jump away from 40, Rafi Gardet. Rafi also happens to, unbeknownst to the characters, be dating Meryl’s struggling artist son (Greenberg). Given this wacky premise, most filmmakers would have stopped there and included a Three’s Company litany of mistaken pseudo-references and Oedipal context, but Younger is made of sterner stuff. He enlists his actors in an exercise of maturity and questionable societal concerns about love, age, and religion. It is a mature film that will have many younger viewers scratching their heads as to where the ubiquitous unfulfilling payoff is. Prime, happens to have a fulfilling understanding of its characters and where they are headed; all within a deeply multi-layered script so well written it has characters speaking ill-chosen lines simply because that is the nature of their being.

Perhaps, it is a convention of a director working with his own material, perhaps it is just that rare occasion where all the pieces fall together. But Younger and his actors deliver a quiet thoughtful film touching on so many, “what could have been ifs”, that it requires a second viewing.

The DVD comes with the standard array of extras, deleted scenes, outtakes and the like, but thankfully, it also includes a commentary by the director. To get a clue on a talented writer’s thoughts, cue it up and take notes.

Written by: Kevin Yeoman

Reviewers Rating: 8.5
Reader's Rating: 7.67
Reader's Votes: 3

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