★★★★☆
Four Stars
What a remarkable way Bill Murray’s career has developed since his youthful days on Saturday Night Live. Although the US Academy deprived him of their Best Actor award for the superb Lost in Translation, the British Academy proved rather more discerning. Since then he has cultivated an increasingly diverse portfolio of work, often as the lead actor, for which he has won plenty of praise from commentators. St. Vincent is the latest addition to his catalogue of distinguished acting. Much though I adore Lost in Translation, I have to admit that this is probably his best performance yet.
The plot follows an extraordinary sequence of events in the life of Vincent MacKenna (played by Murray). At first glance, Vincent is something of a mixed bag. He is unemployed, and an alcoholic. He regularly hires a prostitute to satiate his sexual wants, and does not even manage the courtesy of paying her promptly. He gets into fights with a barman who refuses to serve him liquor, when he is clearly already intoxicated. He drink drives home, only to reverse over his own picket fence as he backs into the driveway, before callously attributing the blame to his neighbour. He lives in squalor, and squanders what little disposable income he has. He is indebted to a loan shark, having borrowed money to gamble on horse racing (and, inevitably, losing the lot). But he is not all bad. He has a pet cat upon whom he both lavishes affection and fine foods, giving rise to the unusual phenomenon that his cat eats better than he does. Although he owns his own home, he has liquidated his equity in it to pay for the care costs of a mysterious woman, whose relation to Vincent is not immediately apparent. His behaviour is self-destructive but he is clearly possessed of a great capacity for love and affection for others. His lifestyle has nonetheless left him socially isolated, and he is rude and abrasive with virtually everybody he meets.
Enter new neighbours, Maggie (played by Melissa McCarthy) and her son Oliver (played by an unusually talented child actor, Jaeden Lieberher). Maggie has been betrayed by her philandering husband, and has left the family home in exasperation, taking Oliver with her. She has taken a job at a hospital and is trying to make ends meet for herself and her son, but is clearly struggling under the pressure. She finds herself in need of a babysitter for Oliver, and by an accident of fate, Vincent steps in to the role, driven by desperation for money. Oliver and Vincent strike an unlikely friendship, with Vincent in loco parentis helping Oliver to confront school bullies, build up his self-confidence and otherwise socially succeed. Once economic necessity forces Vincent to allow others to pierce his social armour, he is revealed as a rather more intricate soul than he initially appears. Young Oliver, exasperated with how his Catholic school extols as saints fictional beings devoid of character flaws, begins to look to more real life examples of human good. This prompts him to take a particular interest in Vincent, and we as an audience share in his reflections and assessments of Vincent.
St. Vincent is an impressively eloquent character drama which reflects upon the nature of man. Vincent almost casually performs incredibly noble deeds as part of his every day habits. He has an immense capacity to do good, but he is simultaneously beset by some of the most ignoble human vices. These contradictions sit awkwardly together, but it is Murray’s outstanding performance which makes them believable. At the helm here — as director, producer and screenplay writer — is Theodore Melfi. As it turns out, this is Melfi’s very first feature length film. That there is no visible evidence of this on screen is remarkable. Both the script and the directing show an impressive maturity and restraint, and though Murray’s stand out performance may be the one which is remembered during the awards season, Melfi is an outstanding new talent and a real find. This is an impressive first directorial effort, and is well worth watching.
