Ben Younger (2005)
This New York romance revolves around the age difference of the two lovers, newly-divorced Manhattan career woman Rafi (thirty-seven) and talented-but-going-nowhere artist David (twenty-three), and the twist that Rafi’s therapist turns out to be David’s mother. Both elements could be developed seriously or comically or both: the weakness of Prime is how much they diverge – Rafi’s relationship with David is treated in an increasingly straight-faced way while the parts involving his mother Lisa are light relief. The writer-director Ben Younger takes a risk by having Lisa work out so early on who the new man in Rafi’s life is. With Meryl Streep as Lisa, it’s a risk worth taking – but, for Prime to have any real traction, Younger needed to show how the comic coincidence exposed different sides to all three of the principals.
The dichotomy between the therapist’s professional and personal lives – between the advice she gives in the consulting room and what she expects as an Orthodox Jewish mother – is an obvious idea but Streep’s infinite histrionic resource means that it plays out very enjoyably. She also injects much-needed comic tension into both the sessions with Rafi and Lisa’s domestic scenes. As Prime moves towards its lame, tame conclusion, though, Uma Thurman (Rafi) and Bryan Greenberg (David) have little to do except confront the inter-generation romantic obstacles they might have expected if David’s mother had never set foot outside the family’s West Side home. It’s frustrating because Uma Thurman gives her golden Gentile sexuality a funny edge and Bryan Greenberg is extremely likeable. There’s good support from Jon Abrahams (as David’s best friend) and Jerry Adler and Doris Belack (as Lisa’s parents). The film’s title may refer to the fact that, as Lisa carelessly assures Rafi before the penny drops, ‘You’re both in your sexual prime’. Or it could be a reminder that, as IMDB notes, twenty-three and thirty-seven are both prime numbers.
2 July 2010
