Mack & Rita

Mack & Rita is a 2022 American comedy film directed by Katie Aselton, from a screenplay by Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh. The plot follows a 30-year-old woman (Elizabeth Lail) who wakes up as her 70-year-old self (Diane Keaton) after a bachelorette party. Taylour Paige, Loretta Devine, Amy Hill, Lois Smith, Wendie Malick, Simon Rex, Martin Short, and Dustin Milligan also star. The film was released on August 12, 2022, by Gravitas Premiere, to negative reviews from critics, including a worst actress nomination for Keaton,[4] but the performances of Paige and Milligan were praised.

Mack & Rita
Theatrical release poster
Directed byKatie Aselton
Written by
  • Paul Welsh
  • Madeline Walter
Produced by
  • Alex Saks
  • Diane Keaton
  • Stephanie Heaton-Harris
  • Jina Panebianco
  • Dori Rath
Starring
CinematographySean McElwee
Edited byMichael A. Webber
Music byLeo Birenberg
Production
companies
Distributed byGravitas Premiere
Release dates
  • August 10, 2022 (2022-08-10) (NeueHouse)
  • August 12, 2022 (2022-08-12) (United States)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$500,000[1]
Box office$2.6 million[2][3]

Premise

Thirty-year-old Mack Martin reluctantly joins a Palm Springs bachelorette trip for her best friend Carla, but then decides not to go to the event. Instead she finds a tent and does a past life regression and winds up as her seventy-year-old self. Freed from the constraints of other people's expectations, Rita comes into her own, becoming an unlikely social media sensation, and sparks a tentative romance with Mack's dog-sitter, Jack.

Cast

Production

The film initially began development in January 2020, but fell apart amid the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. That October, producer Alex Saks approached director Katie Aselton saying he had secured about $500,000 of funding.[1] In March 2021, it was announced Diane Keaton, Elizabeth Lail, Taylour Paige, Dustin Milligan, Simon Rex, Nicole Byer, Patti Harrison, Loretta Devine, Wendie Malick, Lois Smith and Amy Hill had joined the cast of the film, with a screenplay by Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh.[5] Shortly after, it was reported that Elizabeth Lail joined to the cast.[6][7]

Principal photography began on March 25, 2021 and concluded on April 23, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.[8] Due to a limited production budget and the ongoing pandemic, several changes had to be made to the script during shooting, including the forced removal of a Coachella sequence due to the event's cancellation and combining days of shooting into one, as well as not being able to have chemistry tests between the actors prior to filming.[1]

Release

In April 2022, Gravitas Premiere acquired distribution rights to the film, and set it for an August 12, 2022, release.[9] The red carpet took place at the NeueHouse in Los Angeles, California in August 10, 2022.[10]

Reception

Box office

The film made $310,000 from 1,930 theaters on its first day.[11] It went on to debut to $1.1 million.[12]

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 25% based on 62 reviews, with an average rating of 4.2/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Diane Keaton gives Mack & Rita her all, but this cloying comedy lets her down at nearly every turn."[13] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[14] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak gave the film a 61% overall positive score, with 46% saying they would definitely recommend it.[11][12]

Lisa Kennedy of The New York Times commended Aselton's "unexpected beats" as a director for capturing the "esprit de girlfriends" quality of Insecure, despite borrowing from Nancy Meyers' "rom-com catalog of upscale homes."[15] Nell Minow, writing for RogerEbert.com, gave credit to Paige and Milligan's performances but wrote that "[T]he film's promising setup and excellent cast are let down by a script so forgettable that even to try to summarize it is to feel it dissolve from memory."[16] Katie Walsh of the Los Angeles Times was also critical of the film's script, saying it "ditches character establishment and clear conflict for fish-out-of-water physical comedy and some vaguely affirmative lessons about learning to be yourself, unapologetically."[17] The A.V. Club's Courtney Howard and Entertainment Weekly's Leah Greenblatt both gave the movie an overall C+ grade, the former saying it followed the same "whimsical fantasy boilerplate" of the body-swap subgenre with similar themes of "confidence, regret and friendship" and the latter calling it "a body-swap comedy so daffy and weightless it nearly levitates."[18][19] Amy Nicholson of Variety called it "a bewildering generational culture-war comedy", criticizing the mixed messages on agism and the "underwritten" roles given to the supporting cast.[20]

References
  1. Sippell, Margeaux (August 15, 2022). "Mack & Rita Director Katie Aselton on Navigating Big Challenges With a Small Budget". Movie Maker. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
  2. "Mack & Rita (2022)". The Numbers. Nash Information Services, LLC. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  3. "Mack & Rita (2022)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  4. O’Connell, Mikey (March 10, 2023). "Is Hollywood Too Sensitive for the Razzies?". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 12, 2023.
  5. D'Alessandro, Anthony (March 18, 2021). "Diane Keaton & Taylour Paige Set For Romantic Comedy 'Mack & Rita'". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on July 19, 2022. Retrieved March 18, 2021.
  6. Petski, Denise; D'Alessandro, Anthony (March 19, 2021). "Elizabeth Lail To Star In Romantic Comedy 'Mack And Rita', Joins 'Gossip Girl' Reboot". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on August 23, 2022. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  7. D'Alessandro, Anthony (March 26, 2021). "'Mack & Rita': Diane Keaton Comedy Adds Wendie Malick, Nicole Byer, Dustin Milligan, Simon Rex & More". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on February 12, 2022. Retrieved March 26, 2021.
  8. "Film and TV Projects Going Into Production - Mack & Rita". Variety Insight. Archived from the original on March 19, 2021. Retrieved March 18, 2021.
  9. Grobar, Matt (April 27, 2022). "Gravitas Ventures Launches New Theatrical Release Label Gravitas Premiere; Katie Aselton's 'Mack & Rita', Starring Diane Keaton, Set As First Acquisition". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on June 7, 2022. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  10. Lovera, Apryl (August 11, 2022). "The Mack & Rita Los Angeles premiere brought out some of Hollywood's biggest stars, including Diane Keaton, Elizabeth Lail and Taylour Paige at NeueHouse on Aug. 10. Here's a look at the best looks and moments from the night". Entertainment Tonight. Archived from the original on August 12, 2022. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
  11. Murphy, J. Kim (August 13, 2022). "'Bullet Train' Repeating on Top as August Box Office Slows Down". Variety. Archived from the original on August 16, 2022. Retrieved August 14, 2022. an alarming "D+" grade on Cinema Score indicates that most of those ticket buyers were not satisfied
  12. D'Alessandro, Anthony (August 13, 2022). "'Bullet Train' Second Go-Round Now At $13.3M As Summer 2022 Clocks Lowest Weekend To Date With $64M – Saturday PM Box Office Update". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on August 26, 2022. Retrieved August 14, 2022.
  13. "Mack & Rita". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved December 22, 2022.
  14. "Mack & Rita (2022) Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on September 7, 2022. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
  15. Kennedy, Lisa (August 11, 2022). "'Mack & Rita' Review: 70 Is the New 30". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 24, 2022. Retrieved September 10, 2022.
  16. Minow, Nell (August 12, 2022). "Mack & Rita". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Archived from the original on August 30, 2022. Retrieved September 10, 2022.
  17. Walsh, Katie (August 11, 2022). "Review: Who wouldn't want to be Diane Keaton? But in a better movie than 'Mack & Rita'". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on August 31, 2022. Retrieved September 10, 2022.
  18. Howard, Courtney (August 11, 2022). "Mack & Rita, a body swap brings changes". The A.V. Club. The Onion. Archived from the original on August 13, 2022. Retrieved September 10, 2022.
  19. Greenblatt, Leah; Baldwin, Kristen; Franich, Darren (August 12, 2022). "Bodies Bodies Bodies is fun Gen-Z surface, while a reinvented A League of Their Own goes deep". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on September 8, 2022. Retrieved September 10, 2022.
  20. Nicholson, Amy (August 10, 2022). "'Mack & Rita' Review: Diane Keaton is a Millennial Misfit Embracing Granny Chic in a Confused Body-Swap Comedy". Variety. Archived from the original on August 23, 2022. Retrieved September 10, 2022.
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