Mr. Church

The promotional ads and opening titles for Mr. Church tell us the film is "inspired by a true friendship".  My guess as to what this means is that the screenwriter, Susan McMartin (a veteran television writer, making her feature film debut), grew up with someone similar to the titular Mr. Church most of her life, and wrote a screenplay based on her memories.  In this case, she seems to have confused her private memories with well worn movie cliches.  This is a cloyingly sweet and overly sentimental story that only stands out because it features the first appearance on the big screen for Eddie Murphy in four years.

The plot kicks off in 1971, when single mother Marie (Natascha McElhone) is given the services of Henry Church (a stoic and subdued Eddie Murphy) as a personal chef as a gift from a former lover who recently died.  Marie's daughter, 10-year-old Charlotte (Natalie Coughlin) doesn't like this arrangement one little bit.   She's happy living alone with her mother, and thinks they don't need him. When Henry prepares a gorgeous home cooked breakfast for her mother and her, bratty Charlotte demands she would rather have Apple Jacks.  What Charlotte doesn't know is that her mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and only has six months to live, so Henry has been brought to cook and generally look after the home.  Marie winds up living much longer than the doctors say, and as the years pass and Charlotte grows into a teenager and an adult (now played by Britt Robertson), she eventually grows attached to Henry, who imparts many wisdoms and life lessons, as well as teaches her the joys of reading.

Mr. Church is ultimately a melodramatic tear jerker, so you can pretty much check off the plot points before they even happen.  Will Charlotte's mother ultimately succumb to the disease, and have a meaningful last conversation with her daughter?  Will Henry stay by Charlotte's side through thick and thin?  Will there be a misunderstanding that tears them apart for a short while?  Will they reconcile and will Henry welcome Charlotte back into his life when she needs him the most?  Does Henry have a mysterious and painful past that has to do with family issues?  Will Henry eventually be faced with his own tearful medical diagnosis?  The answer to all these questions can be answered with another question - Does a bear do its business in the woods?

The movie is directed by Bruce Beresford, who back in 1989 made the Academy Award-winning Driving Miss Daisy, which was another movie that chronicled the relationship between a white woman and a stoic black man over the decades.  That movie was sentimental, sure, but it had the great performances by Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, who both knew how to sell the material without making it come across as utter cornball.  This time around, he lays the syrup on so thick, I don't know if any actor would be able to sell it.  Murphy has shown he can play a dramatic role in the past, but the role of Henry Church pretty much requires him to do nothing but look thoughtful and a little sad and distant.  There's just not enough for Murphy to do with this character.  Meanwhile, Britt Robertson is also given little to do, other than provide a stilted narration that explains most of what her character is thinking and feeling, because the movie forgets to give her character an actual personality other than to be nice most of the time, and moody the rest of the time.

I am only guessing that Mr. Church is loosely based on the personal memories of its writer, but it certainly comes across that way.  The movie has the hazy feel of nostalgia, where we feel like we are watching personal vignettes that have been made all the more sweeter and poignant than they actually were with the passing of time.  Aside from a few of the characters landing in a hospital, nothing all that bad ever happens, and everybody generally winds up okay in the end, or at peace when they're forced to leave this world.  Even the town drunk not only winds up saving somebody's life, but completely turning his life around and finding true love off camera within the span of a couple years.  The town dreamboat grows up to be a doctor as well as an all around great guy and possible love interest for Charlotte.  Even Charlotte's best friend from school, who briefly grows up to be a materialistic and shallow person, ends up okay and a little bit wiser in the end.

I'm not at all opposed to movies that are sentimental and a little cornball.  After all, I'm the guy who liked Me Before You last summer.  But there has to be a trace of a real heart behind it all.  The heart behind Mr. Church is cloying and calculated, and feels like it's the end result of a storyteller who has seen one too many movies just like this one.

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