During the post-screening Q&A of the world premiere of St. Vincent at the Toronto International Film Festival, Bill Murray joked that the only reason first-time director Theodore Melfi cast him as the lead was because “Jack Nicholson wasn’t available.” At first, this sounds like an apt comparison, as Murray’s titular Vincent—an aged, foul-mouthed, gambling, drunk loner—seems a perfect match for Nicholson’s modern-day oeuvre. But really, Vincent is a revisionist take on the classic Murray persona. Unlike the sad-sack roles in his career renaissance, in films by auteurs like Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch, St. Vincent explores a Murray whose once impish, devil-may-care charm has been beaten down by life’s many disappointments into carelessness and a general don’t-give-a-fuckery.
Vincent lives a miserly existence, spending his days splurging what little money he has on liquor and horse racing, and sleeping it off (sometimes on the kitchen floor) of his filthy, cluttered house. When his overworked new neighbor Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) in is desperate need of a regular babysitter for her 12-year-old son Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher, in an impressive and natural screen debut), Vincent jumps at the chance to make a few extra dollars. Vincent reluctantly bonds with the wise-beyond-his-years boy, revealing that there’s more than meets the eye behind the grumpy old man next door.
Rounding out the cast is Chris O’Dowd as Oliver’s impossibly tolerant Catholic school teacher, Terrence Howard as the horse track’s resident loan shark, and Naomi Watts as a pregnant Russian stripper-cum-prostitute (complete with all the earmarks of Hollywood’s usual ham-fisted attitude toward sex work). The latter is a role as cartoonish as it sounds—an unfortunate stab at broad comedy by Watts that shirks believability for a funny accent.
Watts’ turn here is especially disappointing when stacked alongside a seasoned comedic actress like McCarthy. Her performance is a refreshing departure from the outlandishness of her breakthrough roles in Bridesmaids and The Heat. McCarthy’s always been capable of more than rote gross-out humor (evidenced by her many years as a solid supporting player on Gilmore Girls, and in the underrated Ryan Reynolds vehicle The Nines). Hopefully, St. Vincent is the first of many roles that gives her the opportunity to show off her range. Here, she channels her usual unassuming frankness into a role as a newly single mother struggling to raise a child and make ends meet. Her character’s third-act monologue (labored and overly expository as written) could have crumbled in the hands of a lesser talent—however, her sweet, uninhibited delivery shines.
The film works best as a character sketch, but Melfi’s tonally uneven script is most evident when dragged along by the necessities of the plot. St. Vincent operates on a sort of misanthrope logic: it posits that the attitude that dooms Vincent to live out the rest of his days in miserable isolation is what a scrawny kid like Oliver needs to survive his preteen years. Scenes of Vincent teaching Oliver how to win in a fistfight are entertaining, but speak to a retrograde masculinity in which the film has little interest critiquing. As well, a handful of unanswered threads run throughout the film, including a subplot featuring Howard, sorely wasted here as more of a plot contrivance than a fully-fleshed out human being, only appearing when the dramatic stakes are in need of tweaking.
St. Vincent ends with a nearly overbearing sweetness that lacks the bite of classic Murray fare. But Murray and Lieberher’s considerable talents buoy the material far beyond its modest ambitions. Their scenes together—be it joy-riding, betting on winners at the track, or scaring off bullies—are a pleasure to watch. The final tear-jerking moments come fast and predictable, but damn it, the old man and the kid make it work.
