Review: On The Rocks
Sofia Coppola’s singular artistic eye makes her one of the most compelling filmmakers working today. Her projects so far have spanned period pieces, retellings of true stories, and modern day love stories. Her films are uniquely situated on the front lines of popular culture while also having a timeless tinge to them. So when her most recent project, On the Rocks, a quiet father-daughter drama, debuted on Apple TV without much fuss, it seemed out of step with her usual style.
The film is great, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t have a splashy entrance into the world like we might expect from Coppola. The story seems deeply personal -- following a woman (Rashida Jones) whose very wealthy and influential father’s (Bill Murray) outdated and problematic ideas about relationships come to bear on her life when she suspects her husband might be cheating on her. When her dad offers unsolicited advice and a plan of action she’s not totally on board with, she goes along with it against her better judgement.
Jones and Murray have great chemistry and provide beautifully nuanced performances that capture the joys and pains of father-daughter relationships that are broken, but in the process of healing. The film might not be flashy but, in a hard year where we are missing family and friends and the opportunity to just grab a drink at a bar, the film felt cozy and somehow the exact thing we needed from Coppola during these strange times.