My First Mister (2001)

Something really peculiar really happens in the structure in My First Mister...

The first 20 Albert Brooks-less minutes drag like hell; hopelessly so. It’s just the worst cliché-ridden teen emo/goth-dramatics- all incense and poorly-lit bedrooms. Gawd. Leelee Sobieski is struggling to keep her head above water in this over written introduction complete with sarky and self-loathing voice-over.

Once Sobieski leaves school and comes in contact with men’s formalwear mall-shop manager (Albert Brooks) then become quite watchable, which I level solely at his quiet grumpy genius.

She asks for a job at his store and he agrees as long as she removes her piercings and make-up… she begins to scrub up and develop a friendship and burgeoning crush on her. Here’s the crux of the story- at this point, which way do you turn?

Do they get together and do the May to December thing?

If not, do they play out an inspoken jawn like in Lost In Translation?

If they do, how will that inevitably muss-up?

I imagined that they would but Sobieski learns more about what she’s searching for in life by realising that she can’t be happy trying to share her life with him because they’re basically very different but they end as good friends.

What actually happen is… well it aint predictable. Brooks gets leukaemia and they set out to make peace with his life before he expires. They get shoe-horned love interest from this point onwards- Sobieski finds Brooks long-forgotten son and Brooks gets lucky with his nurse (the awesome Mary Kay Place).

To be fair there is a lot of unused acting talent unused from Michael McKean to Carol Kane, which is strange since My First Mister is directed by Christine Lahti, an actress herself. I’m not surprised see she can attract actors or that she’s no visual stylist but i’d have thought she’d be able to tell the difference between a good and bad script or would set-up all her colleague for a fall like this one- only Brooks comes out of this movie unscathed and that would be because he has a history like Bill Murray of… not ad-libbing but performing his own version of the dialogue; in his own voice.

As acceptable as My First Mister is for it’s Sunday afternoon comedy-drama-ness, it’s instantly forgettable or easily confused with Steve Buscemi and Thora Birch in Ghost World, though I’d be quick to say they’re very different films.


I watched My First Mister (2001) on DVD via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Barney's Version (2010).