One More Time (2015)

ONE MORE TIME  (2015)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Robert Edwards
    Christopher Walken, Amber Heard, Kelli Garner,
    Hamish Linklater, Ann Magnuson, Oliver Platt
Christopher Walken, dialing the weirdness back a notch, stars as Paul Lombard, a crooner who used to pack 'em in, but whose glory days are long gone. Amber Heard plays his daughter Jude, an aspiring musician who desperately wants to make it on her own and can't stand living in the old man's overbearing shadow. Kelli Garner plays Corinne, the other daughter, the responsible one, "the one who can't sing," whose mercenary pragmatism comes through in a big way for all of them. Hamish Linklater plays Corinne's husband Tim, who once had an affair with Jude, who's also slept with her therapist, her agent, and who knows how many other guys. For the moment, the whole family's hanging out at Paul's house in the Hamptons, talking at, over and through each other, the way people who've known each other too long and too well sometimes do. There are a couple moments of high drama, but what really counts here are the day-to-day interactions between the various players, and the grudging affection that underlies all the sniping and complaining they do. They're not perfect - far from it - but they try, and there's a kind of nobility in that. Besides, as Katharine Hepburn put it in "The Lion In Winter", "What family doesn't have its ups and downs?"