St. Vincent is formula, but it's damn affecting formula. As soon as we meet the titular curmudgeon followed by the set-up that requires him to watch over the new neighbor kid we know where things are going. This is a film though that epitomizes the saying, "it's not about where you're going, it's about how you get there." There is nothing new to find in the intentions of the story or even in the way it is executed. Everything you will take away from
St. Vincent is because of the characters, their individual arcs and how it comes together to not necessarily paint a pretty picture, but a humbling one. We are in a day and age where this, in many ways, feels like the culmination of Bill Murray's master plan. He has so effortlessly (or it at least seems that way) become more of a figure, a myth than that of an actual being that we find real value in seeing him let loose as much as he does here. There have only been a few occasions over the last decade or so where the legendary actor and comic has allowed himself this much visibility and unlike 2012's odd
Hyde Park on Hudson this sees him in a role that is able to be more widely appreciated. You will recognize the schtick Murray is playing because he's done it before, but that doesn't make it any less fun to watch or when his stage of life and career are taken into consideration, any less affecting. I say affecting again because despite the fact we know where the film is going and we know what it wants us to feel it is still able to achieve a genuine emotional reaction from the audience and for that alone, the film deserves credit. It is also to the films credit that it doesn't overstay its welcome and allows the actors to flourish in their roles bringing the intended ideas to the surface and moving the audience in just the right way to where we are fine with the manipulation it is pulling over on us.
St. Vincent is a crowd-pleaser in the biggest and best sense of the word in that it is a film I realize could be taken as overly-sentimental or even hokey, but that I could watch over and over again and still find reasons to smile every time. Sometimes, you need a film like that and
St. Vincent would make a wonderful default to turn to for, if nothing else, the showcase it allows Murray.
