Review of Lady of the Manor

I love Melanie Lynskey, but this was pretty awful. Her character was flat and one dimensional, and I had the feeling she was phoning the whole thing in. She's a good actor with great comedic chops, so for the life of me I can't understand how she and several other recognizable names ended up in this awkwardly written and poorly paced nonsense. Did they all owe Justin & Christian Long a favor? And speaking of the frères Long, their directing was...well, nonexistent. The entire production was directionless and lost at sea. There's the germ of a cute story in here somewhere, but good luck finding it. Did I say the actors were all recognizable? Perhaps I should retract that, because Ryan Philippe is doing his best via surgery to make himself less and less recognizable. I guess turning 47 was too much for him: his face is unnatural and a little creepy. There are several other things about this film that just irritated me because they were completely avoidable. For example, the "manor" is supposed to be from the 1840s, when clearly it's a 1920s structure. The story was set in Georgia, but shot in Florida. Are there no antebellum buildings in Florida? If no, couldn't they have used external shots of a period appropriate house from a neighboring state? I hear Georgia & Mississippi are chock full of those things. And why didn't anyone ever clean Melanie up? Again, I like her, but her character is a grossly unpleasant slob throughout the entire story, and not in an adorably-disorganized-ugly-duckling-who-will-become-a-swan-in-the-end kind of way. The character is lusted after by 2 guys, but men don't generally chase fat, greasy-haired stoners who sit on the couch in pajamas all day. I know I wouldn't. Anyway, I could go on, but this is getting boring.

I would skip this movie if I were you, even if you're a fan of the people in it. Something went terribly wrong somewhere, and the whole effort turned out excusably mediocre to downright bad. Hard and disappointing pass. Meh.