Like her father before her, Sofia Coppola is certainly an idiosyncratic filmmaker. She doesn't do ordinary, be it a movie about teenage suicide, a May-September rom-com or a film about a French Queen. "On the Rocks" is her father and daughter movie, (and it may have more than a touch of the autobiographical about it), and in some way it's a companion piece to her best, as well as her best-known film "Lost in Translation", right down to the casting of Bill Murray . This time round a much older Murray is the dad and Rashida Jones is the daughter whose wedding we see at the beginning. Seconds late she's got two children and is feeling dissatisfied in her marriage. She's also a writer and the way Coppola encapsulates all this information into just a few minutes of screen time is really quite stunning.
What follows is a funny, touching and hugely intelligent picture of two people who obviously love each other but who have kind of drifted apart, reconnecting as they play detective to see if her husband is cheating on her, as well as being something of a love letter to night-time New York, bolstered by two terrific performances from Murray and Jones and Coppola's superb dialogue; you hang on every word. A total pleasure from beginning to end and once again, shame on the Academy for ignoring it and most especially for ignoring Murray's great performance.
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