Zu guter Letzt (2017)

Zu guter Letzt: Directed by Mark Pellington. With Shirley MacLaine, Amanda Seyfried, AnnJewel Lee Dixon, Thomas Sadoski. Harriet is a retired businesswoman who tries to control everything around her. When she decides to write her own obituary, a young journalist takes up the task of finding out the truth resulting in a life-altering friendship.

“I should honestly be impressed that The Last Word gets away with as much as it does. It starts as one of those stereotypical light-weight puff pieces. The kind that gears itself toward the fussy, all-knowing, film festival crowd, then hits them over the head with the same mindlessness they claim to avoid by not watching mainstream films. The irony of course is theyu0026#39;re never made aware that theyu0026#39;re watching strategically released pabulum because theyu0026#39;re u0026quot;too smart and refinedu0026quot; (and white) to subject themselves to the latest common blockbuster. The Last Word is basically the cinematic equivalent of u0026quot;The Emperoru0026#39;s New Clothes,u0026quot; for old people.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe Last Word stars aged Hollywood icon Shirley MacLaine who basically takes the hindsight throne that was previously sat on by Meryl Streep in Ricki and the Flash (2015) and Al Pacino in Danny Collins (2015). She plays, of course a mortality aware loner who decides she wants to change her life with the help of a permanently brought-aback obituary writer (Seyfried) and later on, a sassy little black girl (Lee Dixon) whose tokenism would be offensive if it wasnu0026#39;t so carelessly stilted. Within the course of a month, Harriet Lalor (MacLaine) decides to reconstruct her legacy in the following order of importance: touch someoneu0026#39;s life unexpectedly, find that certain something extra, be respected by her community and be beloved by friends and family.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhat immediately elevates Last Word from other pedestrian feel-good movies like this, is the inclusion of Shirley MacLaine. With over fifty years of experience playing acid-dipped battle-axes, MacLaine easily transcends the filmu0026#39;s paltry story and annoyingly analog aesthetics. She does so well playing the quintessential shrew that every other one-note character fades into the background like a white wall against a bright tapestry.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOf course, if sassy repartee alone was enough to elevate a bomb Iu0026#39;d be working for a publication by now. Literally everything else in this film suffers from clumsily sets up reveals and embarrassingly artificial sentiment. We see it all coming yet no effort is made to keep the script itself engaging or the least bit deserving of such an off-the-wall character. Why is Lalor hated by her family, why was she ejected by the advertising agency she started, why does literally everyone she meets want to kill her? The answers to all these questions will likely give OCD sufferers reason to get off their meds while giving babyboomers license to continue being s***ty people.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhat saves The Last Word from ultimately being beyond redemption is the very clear inference that the movie is a fantasy. Itu0026#39;s a very treacly fantasy and one that would needle audiences outside its demographic into a permanent eye-twitch. Yet for those who just canu0026#39;t fathom why young whippersnappers like me canu0026#39;t just point to a place on a map and go, The Last Word is just what the doctor ordered. Consider it the last movie youu0026#39;ll see before euthanasia.”