Producers: Jake Johnson, Trent O’Donell, Joe Hardesty, D’Arcy Carden and Huey M. Park Director: Trent O’Donnell Screenplay: Jake Johnson and Trent O’Donnell Cast: Jake Johnson, D’Arcy Carden, Luis Fernandez-Gul, Cleo King, Eric Edelstein, Billy Bungeroth, J.K. Simmons and Susan Sarandon Distributor: Decal
Grade: B-
More an extended sketch than a fully fleshed-out movie, this wafer-thin dramedy, filmed during the pandemic, is a pleasant if slight fable about reconnecting after a long separation. The gorgeous Yosemite locations alone, shot nicely by Judd Overton, make it easy to watch.
Jake Johnson, one of the producers as well as co-writer of the screenplay with director Trent O’Donnell, stars as Leif, a scruffy thirty-something layabout living in a cabin beside the house of Gorka (Luis Fernandez-Gul), the heavily-accented dude who heads the band in which Leif plays the bongos. Though he talks to Gorka occasionally—or more accurately listens to the guy’s rants—Leif’s bosom companion is his lovable dog Nora.
One morning Leif’s roused from his lethargy by Missy (Cleo King), a friend of his long-estranged mother Honey (Susan Sarandon). She informs him not only that Honey’s died, but that she left him her mountain home up north under a conditional inheritance. He’ll have to go to there and complete a series of tasks that Honey left for him on a VHS tape before his ownership is confirmed.
Gorka observes that Leif loathed Honey, but he and Nora go off to her place anyway, and is astonished to find it a beautiful redwood retreat that—in a wonderful surprise—houses bag after bag of weed. Realizing that to hold on to it (something that will become ever more urgent when Gorka calls to tell him he’s been dumped from the band) he’ll have to meet the conditions of his mother’s unusual will, he pops the tape into the old VCR.
Ebullient hippie-type Honey promptly apologizes for ignoring him all these years and assigns him a series of tasks that, she says, will teach him some important life lessons she should have imparted while she was still alive. They come with New Agey spiels about love and self-actualization, but most are pretty straightforward, like ordering Leif to go hiking and fishing.
Some, however, are more peculiar. One involves Leif rowing across the nearby lake, entering a house there and leaving a nasty note for its occupant. Doing that rouses the ire of the foul-mouthed owner and leads to Nora’s disappearance; but Carl (J.K. Simmons) turns out to be, if not a pussycat, less of a threat than he initially seems.
Honey’s other injunction instructs Leif to get in touch with “the one that got away,” which prompts him to call Audrey (D’Arcy Carden), a girl whom, being commitment-phobic, he’d broken up with years before. She toys with him at first, but as they talk over time it becomes apparent that she might not have gotten away for good, after all.
And not to worry, Leif and Nora are reunited too.
There’s a lot of split-screen work here—the conversations between Leif and Audrey are conducted entirely in that format. And Honey’s videos are of course filmed separately, with cuts to Johnson as he reacts to them. (And when Johnson and Simmons finally meet, social distancing is certainly maintained.) O’Donnell and editor Daniel Haworth keep the pacing and rhythm low-key (except when Simmons pops up to add some characteristic sizzle or Fernandez-Gul revs up his dialogue ), and a similar mood pervades Jeff Cardoni’s score.
That’s very much in tune with Johnson’s laid-back performance, which dominates the picture. He brings a shambling charm to the role, and though he and Carden never appear together in a shot, they have a nice rapport in their long-distance conversations. Simmons and Sarandon add their usual luster to the proceedings, and Fernandez-Gul is a motormouth hoot. Nora definitely gets her share of reaction shots.
“Ride the Eagle”—a title that’s fully explained near the movie’s close—doesn’t soar to great comedic heights, but it’s an easygoing dramedy about reconnecting that’s especially timely in the era of COVID.