MUMFORD (Touchstone) Starring: Loren Dean, Hope Davis, Jason Lee, Alfre Woodard, Mary McDonnell, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Zooey Deschanel, Martin Short, David Paymer, Jane Adams, Dana Ivey, Ted Danson, Jason Ritter. Screenplay: Lawrence Kasdan. Producers: Charles Okun and Lawrence Kasdan. Director: Lawrence Kasdan. MPAA Rating: R (adult themes, drug use, profanity, nudity, sexual situations) Running Time: 111 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Lawrence Kasdan has grown to adore narrative sprawl. A writer who once contributed to tight genre entertainments like THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and BODY HEAT, Kasdan became a film-maker with a problem: He over-indulged his own characters, and let his stories wander wherever those characters wanted to go. He attracted wonderful actors because he wrote wonderful parts, but he seemed little interested in making those parts part of a whole. Sometimes (THE BIG CHILL, SILVERADO, GRAND CANYON) those untamed scripts still turned into satisfying episodic films; sometimes (THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST, WYATT EARP) they turned into meandering acting showcases.
MUMFORD, Kasdan's latest exercise in free-form ensemble, has the germ of a great story at the core of his narrative...and he promptly drowns that germ in the pencillin of his herky-jerky directing. The story begins in the small town town of Mumford, where a recently-arrived psychologist also named Mumford (Loren Dean) is developing a booming practice with his unconventional methods. Doc Mumford endears himself to virtually everyone, including the town's equally unconventional billionaire modem magnate Skip Skipperton (Jason Lee), but it turns out Doc Mumford has a secret. Though his therapy brings results, his credentials aren't exactly conventional either. In fact, he's not a psychologist at all.
It takes a while before Kasdan spills all the beans about Doc Mumford's back story, but by then you can already see everything that's right and everything that's wrong about MUMFORD. On the plus side -- predictably for a Kasdan film -- is the cast, filled with appealing character performers. Loren Dean's low-key, natural delivery is perfect for the no-nonsense Doc Mumford, Jason Lee shows a sweetness far more convincing than it was in KISSING A FOOL, and the radiant Hope Davis lends her unique gifts to Sofie, the chronically fatigued patient for whom Doc Mumford falls. Kasdan drops these characters into the kind of bucolic, milkman-served town that would appeal to anyone looking for a fresh start. It's the ideal set-up for a comic romance with complications.
But MUMFORD isn't a comic romance with complications, at least not often enough. Much of its running time is devoted to Doc Mumford's sessions with a variety of patients: a housewife who shops compulsively (Mary McDonnell); a pharmacist with pulp fiction fantasies (Pruitt Taylor Vince); a sulky teen with self-image problems (Zooey Deschanel). Though the actors are all fine, their characters are a huge distraction. Kasdan certainly needs to show Doc Mumford's gift for helping people, but he includes far too many such scenes. Once again, Kasdan finds himself unable or unwilling to rein in his supporting characters. In the process, he loses track of MUMFORD'S backbone, creating a film that bumps along with virtually no flow.
That lack of momentum is most evident when it becomes clear that MUMFORD's payoff will be a relationship between Mumford and Sofie. There are a couple of perfectly charming scenes between Dean and Davis, but there's no way to anticipate that the film is leading up to a choice based on those scenes. MUMFORD more often plays as a subtle jab at therapy, suggesting that a really good listener who knows something about overcoming troubles is all an unhappy soul really needs. That's an interesting enough concept, but it doesn't exactly make for a satisfying story; watching Doc Mumford's patient list hijack the film only emphasizes that MUMFORD should have been about the doctor. The saying goes that there are no small parts, only small actors. Lawrence Kasdan seems to agree...to a fault.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 casting couches: 5.
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