In her delightful seventh feature On the Rocks, Sofia Coppola captures the New York City streets so lovingly as to deceive you into thinking she has always been a New York filmmaker. Or maybe it’s simply that the warmth and generosity she casts over her characters is so overflowing that it can only pour over into their surroundings. Without question, this is her most affectionate film, a deceptively light quasi-screwball comedy about reconciling a parent’s bullshit when it manifests in your adult life.
But here Coppola seems to be leaving many of her definitive fascinations behind – most obvious being an Angeleno atmosphere both literal and in vibe, but also the dying gasps of youth. Instead she reveals some of the deeper characteristics of her point of view that register more subtly: suppressed emotional displacement, the fitful enlightenment of aging, and our inability to see just how good we have it. Is On the Rocks something of a pivot for the filmmaker? It at least feels like she has shed something cinematically, and given way to deeper feeling.
filmmixtape 