Renée Zellweger plays to her strengths as an unsinkable Southern belle in the safe and breezy 1950s period piece My One and Only. With a platinum blond assist, the scrunchable star crinkles prettily as Ann Devereaux, a flirty yet flinty survivor who scoops up her two teenage sons, loads them into a powder blue Cadillac Eldorado, and leaves her philandering bandleader husband (Kevin Bacon) in New York. One son, Robbie (Mark Rendall), is a Project Runway queen born a half century too soon; the other, George (Logan Lerman), narrates the story and grows up to become…eternally charming, cleverly self-mocking George Hamilton. Yes, this is actually the Tanned One's life story, spun into a weightless movie as cheerily artificial as the Old Navy pitchman's bronze skin tones.
As Ann and her boys motor west toward Los Angeles, Mama looks up old beaux in search of a potential new man with $$$ (she's got a knack for the wrong guys), Robbie does embroidery, and George worries for the three of them. The whole journey unfurls in a billow of fashionable costumes and generous small cameos from nice TV actors, including Chris Noth, Nick Stahl, Eric McCormack, and the
always enlivening Robin Weigert (Calamity Jane in Deadwood) as Ann's stingy sister.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
1:41 PM
savcenko
