Murray is entertaining as ever opposite Rashida Jones in Sofia Coppola’s
comedy about a father and daughter, but its fundamental lack of substance lets it down
Bill Murray amiably shows up on autopilot for this high-concept, low-octane
New York caper from writer-director Sofia Coppola – the title of course playfully combining the specifications for a classy cocktail with a warning of imminent disaster.
The film requires Murray to reprise some of his witty, man-of-the-world ennui from Coppola’s 2003 Tokyo-set smash Lost in Translation in which he struck up a friendship with a lonely, vulnerable younger woman, played by Scarlett Johansson – only now he’s a silver fox, playing opposite the estimable Rashida Jones, who is supposed to be his actual daughter. The film itself melds the daddy motif of earlier Coppola pictures (such as Somewhere from 2010) with Woody Allen’s elegiac view of classic Manhattan and the uproarious light-comedy adventures to be had without real consequence in that fabled city. Murray brings his droll, cool affect around with him everywhere he goes in this movie like an opera cloak, and it’s something that only he could bring off. But he always looks as if he could be thinking about something else, and the light sing-song intonations can betoken anything or nothing. It’s amusing in an undemanding way, but like any great comic, he still needs material.