Prime DVD Review:

After signing her divorce papers Rafi Gardet (Thurman) ask her therapist Lisa Metzger (Streep) for advice on what she do next when is comes to relationships. When she tells her enjoy herself a little, she takes a chance on a date with David (Greenberg). As the relationship develops however an issue becomes more and more apparent, she is thirty-seven and he is twenty-three.

The romantic comedy has changed over the years with most of them based around a high concept but ‘Prime’ sees a return reality to bring us a story of ordinary people.

Writer/director Ben Younger takes us back to a time when the romantic comedy didn’t need an outrageous hook to draw and audience in. Instead of date doctors, wedding crashers and forty year-old virgins we have a story about an issue that is a lot more realistic that most of the rom-coms Hollywood has been producing of late. That issue is something that is not extreme or improbable, an older woman having a relationship with a younger man.

With a fourteen-year difference between Rafi and David, this creates real problems and situations that are very easy to relate to. The film also includes some comedy around the very contempory. This mainly comes from an actress you’d normally associate with drama, Meryl Streep. As well as the real issues that come with the relationship the two principles, you also have the dynamic between therapist and patient and mother and son. The connection is that Meryl plays both mother and therapist.

The Oscar winning actress excels as the woman who is divided between her duty to her patient and her feeling as a mother. Once she realises that Rafi is dating her son David, she really comes into her own proving what a great actress she is, whatever the genre. Most, if not all, of the comedy comes from her as her neurotic character becomes more and more traumatised by Rafi revelations about her relationship with her son David.

With such a heady co-star, it was always going to be hard for both Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg to compete with her screen presence but they do manage to hold their own. As Rafi and David, the pair has real chemistry making it easy for you to understand how the age gap might not be such a hindrance. It is when the relationship grows and progresses when the cracks start to appear, when the pair really come into their own. This is more drama than comedy, as they face real age-gap issues and the differences between become more and more apparent. These are roles are extremely well played by the pair and one that should get Bryan Greenberg noticed.

‘Prime’ is a different kind of romantic comedy. Dealing with a realistic issue makes the film easy to relate to but there is not really much comedy here meaning that the film plays more to a female audience than a male. Whether this is intentional, we will never know but the lack of laughs might not help this appeal to anyone other than its target audience. You have to applaud the approach however, as this treats the audience with a lot more intelligence than the current crop of rom-coms.

Star Rating = * * *

PICTURE & SOUND

Presented in Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 with Dolby Digital 5.1, the movie is presented well.

BONUS FEATURES

Deleted Scenes (8.29 mins)
Entitled ‘Dave and Morris wait for their turn on basketball court’, ‘Rafi meets Morris’, ‘More about what Dave does on a Friday night’, ‘Rafi and Dave arrive at house party’, ‘Rafi mingles at the house party’, ‘Rafi sleeps over’, ‘Rafi and Dave settle at the Hampton’s’, ‘Another night of Sushi’, ‘Lisa and Jack shop at Crate and Barrel’, ‘Morris orders another pie’ and ‘Grandparents return from August in Miami’, these deleted scenes suffer from the lack of a commentary track or introduction to say why they were removed.

Outtakes (3.44 mins)
Watch more adlibs from Jon Abrahams as Morris, the problems with eating sushi and fun with the grandparents.

Prime Time Players (8.42 mins)
Writer/director Ben Younger, producer Jennifer Todd and stars Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg talk about bringing a different kind of romantic comedy to the silver screen. The group talk about the realistic approach of the film and the theme of the age gap that is not a high concept. They also talk about the characters and the actors involved, highlighting how the script drew them into the film.

Feature Commentary with director Ben Younger and producer Jennifer Todd
The producer and the creative mind behind the film provide a fun and informative discussion about the film. They talk about wanting to create a realistic New York story and the characters that inhabit the tale. Filming in New York, they reveal what it is like to work with Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman and what they brought to the production. This is a good commentary from two people who feel passionate about the movie.
Trailers
Previews of ‘Pride and Prejudice’, ‘Windfall’, ‘Just Like Heaven’ and ‘Something New’

OVERALL

This release might only have a collection of deleted scenes, outtakes and a short featurette but the inclusion of the commentary track makes up for their shortcomings. Fans of the film will be pleased with this but they might have wanted some more for their money.



Jamie Kelwick

Watching the trailer for the romantic comedy Prime, I thought I knew exactly what the film would be like. Most romantic comedies are often predictable, and they also all have a catch. The catch is a twist that sets the film apart from all other romantic comedies, even if they all end the same anyways. The catch for Prime is the fact that the leading female is seeing the son of her therapist. This is pretty much all the trailer led audiences to believe the film was about, and I assumed that I also knew the ending. I was surprised to find that Prime went in directions I had not predicted and in the end it was a thought provoking film about relationships and human nature. I suppose that this only proves that you still can’t judge a book by its cover.

Uma Thurman plays Rafi, a 37-year-old divorcee who is having difficulty coping and she turns to her therapist, who also happens to be the mother of David, her new boyfriend. David is only 23-years old, so they have a relationship that few understand, especially not his traditional Jewish mother. Once his mother figures out who her client is dating, there is all of the appropriate humor which was used in the trailer. Rafi raves about their sex life and it is awkward once everyone realizes the mistake. Once the comedy of errors is over, however, Prime turns into a sophisticated relationship film about the different places we can be at in life.

Bryan Greenberg has third billing in this film, but the story is really his. Even though David is completely uninvolved in the therapy sub-plot, he is still the obvious lead character that also happens to be a great deal less known than his co-stars. In fact, what makes the film work is the focus remaining on David. We see things from his side, and it makes the relationship seem much easier to relate to because of Greenberg’s natural delivery.

Greenberg impressed me immediately as an actor to watch out for, and it gave me great joy to see him succeed on the semi-real comedy Unscripted, which actually had mention of Prime in it. I was excited to see him star in such a sophisticated romantic comedy, and I just hope that audiences will start to catch on what a great actor he is. This is similar to the same start that James Franco had before he won an Emmy.

Although I call this a romantic comedy, there are obvious reason why it doesn’t fit perfectly into this genre. I believe that part of the reason it did somewhat poorly in theaters was because audiences didn’t know what to make of it. It can’t be placed in a category so it is difficult for audiences to know how to react to it. There are a few absurd supporting characters that seem to fit into the romantic comedy mold, but there are also a number of dramatic scenes that would usually never be found in a film like this. It isn’t a creative masterpiece, but it certainly is a step in the right direction.

The DVD has simple menus that have clips of the film fading into a still clip, but what makes it work is the simple score playing as well. There are a number of deleted scenes, but they are all lumped together in one chapter and can’t be watched separately. There is also a gag reel, which is filled with many unfunny outtakes. The two features that have some meat to them are Prime Time Players, a behind the scenes featurette led by writer/director Ben Younger, and a commentary track. The commentary track also has Younger and he is joined by producer Jennifer Todd.



Ryan Izay