All That She Wants Review: Annie Murphy Is All That in a Fizzy Rom-Com That Works Best When It Isnt Trying Too Hard

As we meet Emma, a spirited professional dancer played by the exceptionally spirited Annie Murphy, she’s about to turn her life upside down. And who can blame her? She’s in her 30s and her latest gig, a commercial for panty liners, has her slithering around in a Santa’s helper getup. At home that night, she suffers the latest indignities from her controlling longtime boyfriend — a brief, sharp turn from Finn Wittrock, dispensing put-downs while sculpting his jawline with gua sha. Presto change-o, Emma is single again, for the first time in 10 years, and determined to start a new career — huge upheavals, but in the exuberant froth of All That She Wants, no learning curve involves truly dangerous hairpin turns.

The screenplay is by David West Read, creator of The Big Door Prize and, more to the point, a writer and executive producer of Schitt’s Creek, the show that put Murphy on the map. Read is well acquainted with the topspin that Murphy can bring to a line (or even a groan), and directors Scarlett Bermingham and Andrew Rhymer give her room to shine. But as much as the film is a valentine to Murphy’s comedy flair, it’s animated by an ensemble spirit. The cast includes a couple of certified topspin virtuosos: Zosia Mamet, who’s in ace form as Emma’s younger, married sister, and Christine Baranski, who’s called upon to deliver a mix of her signature sangfroid and also carry an awkward narrative thread that’s the movie’s least effective subplot.

As the love interest in the will-they-or-won’t-they story, Cooper Raiff — the writer-director-star of Shithouse, Cha Cha Real Smooth and the Mubi series Hal & Harper — brings his uncommon mix of wide-eyed earnestness and wiseass wit. His character, Luke, is the first guy Emma meets after leaving Wittrock’s Spencer, and the sparks are instant, the flirting creative, the chemistry genuine. That he’s younger than Emma is clear from the get-go, but it still sets her back a step when she learns that he’s a 23-year-old grad student who lives on campus. And it knocks her sideways when, in the clear light of the morning after, she sees his full name on his door and realizes that she babysat him when he was 4.

Though their mutual attraction remains strong, she files away their fling as a one-off and moves on with her life, big-time. Inspired by concern over the worsening stress-induced stutter of her mother, Linda (Baranski), Emma embarks on a master’s program in speech therapy. As the story skips ahead through the months, she also decides to have a baby on her own, which proves a bit more complicated than going back to school.

Emma’s love of babies dates back to early childhood, long before she took care of little Lukie. Her joy is real when her sister, Macy (Mamet), tells her she’s pregnant, but so is the pang of envy. That Luke comes back into Emma’s life (again) just as she’s looking for a sperm donor is the stuff that romantic comedies are made of, and so is their refusal to admit that they adore each other.

Her “nothing to look at here!” insistence that their relationship is strictly transactional, along with her qualms about the age difference, ring true, to a point. And, as he tells Emma (and us), he’s the kind of guy who struggles to say what he wants. But all the back-and-forth-and-back-again between these two in the final third of the movie begins to feel like manufactured friction — not merely the characters getting in their own way, but the narrative mechanics insisting that they do.

In the film’s strongest sequence, a scheduled baby-making trip to Costa Rica turns into a “pivot” to Niagara Falls, in all its tourist-schlock glory (with strong contributions from production designer Caitlin Byrnes and costume designer Mara Zigler). The helmers and their two leads capture the trying-too-hard energy of the getaway and the quiet sincerity at its core, with Read’s screenplay landing a terrifically bittersweet punchline involving an older couple (Peter Millard and Valerie Boyle) who are staying at the same hotel as Emma and Luke.

Such nuance can be harder to find on the home front, where the movie sometimes strains for gravity, particularly in the growing friction between Emma and Linda. Baranski delivers the passive-aggressive snipes like a woman who’s practiced in the art, but her character’s glimmers of vulnerability can feel forced within the context of the quick-moving story. As Emma’s father, Frank, a newly retired military man discovering his inner showbiz ham, Bill Irwin provides some understated levity. Through it all, Mamet’s Macy balances sisterly sympathy with barbed commentary, nicely offset by the effusive sweetness of her husband, Drew (John Gemberling).

As a young man whose even-keeled normalcy — notwithstanding his love of corny vintage novelty songs — feels almost superhuman, Raiff is a superb foil for Murphy’s vibrant intensity. She brings a bursting-with-life hunger to Emma’s every interaction, and a particular gift for embarrassed gaffes and courageously ridiculous rewinds, as when Emma, finding that Luke is not alone but with Paige (Kari Wong), tries to pass off an intended romantic surprise as a random encounter. (Points to Zigler for the perfect dress in the scene.)

DP Robert Scarborough captures it all with a suitably fuss-free straightforwardness. The Toronto-set feature has a small-screen, set-based feel, not a cinematic sense of verisimilitude. The holiday season is a time-marking point of return over the narrative’s three-year span, and those December scenes never feel wintry or cold.

Embracing certain conventions of the rom-com genre, directors (and real-life partners) Bermingham and Rhymer (it’s her first time at the helm; his directing credits include Plus One) have made a movie that often charms, sometimes surprises, and can also feel too neat in its messiness. By the time they resort to a montage recap of romantic moments, there’s no need. Raiff and Murphy, who steps into the big-screen spotlight with oomph to spare, have shown us all we need to know.