Decades into her decorated career as a director, Sofia Coppola has little left to prove and it’s this assuredness and lack of insecurity that shines through in her latest full-length feature, On The Rocks. Tapping the likes of Rashida Jones, Marlon Wayans, and an ever-disarming Bill Murray, Coppola follows up 2017’s The Beguiled with a more everyday subject matter: a marriage.
Released exclusively through Apple TV at the end of October, On The Rocks finds Coppola toying with the theme of matrimony, one that isn’t new to her. She dabbled with a fledgling marriage in Lost in Translation, where she drew on autobiographical elements of her marriage to director Spike Jonze to great effect, but the union under inspection in that film was still a fledgling one; the marriage we see in On The Rocks is more nuanced, but Bill Murray remains the guiding light.
The film opens with flashbacks to the night of Laura (Rashida Jones) and Dean’s (Marlon Wayans) wedding. In a fit of passion, Dean pulls Laura away from the raucous fray in the hotel they’re celebrating in and takes her to the pool where they skinny dip. After panning over the rumpled wedding attire, strewn aside with carnal haste, Coppola cuts to a living room littered with children’s toys and clothes, in which a barefoot Laura pads trying to pick up the pieces. In an unsurprising turn of events, spontaneous passion has made way for the monotony of domesticity.
We learn Laura is a writer but given the time she spends flitting between school and running errands—all while trying to pry herself away from being regaled by a hilarious Jenny Slate—she isn’t always in the best position to pound away at her latest novel. When she is blessed with a few moments of peace in her Manhattan office, she is hard-pressed to focus, and spends time worrying about her marriage. Her malaise was prompted by a strange interaction with Dean upon his return from a business trip. After throwing his bags down at the foot of the bed, Dean clambered beside Laura and initiated some steamy kissing that, judging by Laura’s surprise, hadn’t been the norm for a while. Laura’s pleasant surprise quickly turns into confusion when Dean sharply pulls away from her, and quizzically inspects her as if she wasn’t who he expected. Immediately after his groggy epiphany, Dean falls asleep, leaving Laura to wonder what had just happened.
Friends tell her not to worry—it was just the sleeping pills Dean had taken on return from his trip. But when she finds a woman’s toiletry bag in Dean’s suitcase, Laura is sent into dizzying spirals of anxiety. Things had been difficult with Dean spending all his time at his new startup, but she had just chalked that up to the craziness of trying to get it off the ground. When she accompanies Dean to his work party and meets Fiona, the young associate who had placed her toiletry bag in Dean’s luggage because it “didn’t fit in her carry-on,” Laura’s heart drops. Fiona is an attractive young woman with an English accent who seems to be all over Dean, placing her hand on the small of his back on one occasion, as Laura gazes on sadly from across the room. The attraction doesn’t appear to be unrequited on Dean’s part, who doesn’t shirk away. When asked about her by Laura, Dean says that “Fifi” is simply a good friend.
The final straw that cements Laura’s situation as being a serious one in her eyes is when Dean decides to go away for business on the day of Laura’s birthday. After all the time spent apart, the idea of passing up his wife’s birthday should horrify Dean, but he thinks nothing of it.
This is exactly what prompts Laura’s dad, Felix, into action. Played by Bill Murray, Felix is a debonair businessman who radiates charm and is something of a playboy himself. Long separated from Laura’s mother, Felix is a well-dressed silver fox who wears seersucker suits and can’t help flirting with every woman he comes across. It is perhaps this womanizing behaviour that makes his indignation at Dean’s possible transgression a little hypocritical—how can he express consternation at another man’s supposed lack of fidelity when he himself seems altogether incapable of it? However, we grow to learn that he cares deeply about Laura’s happiness and is of the belief that Dean should be worshipping the ground she walks on.
Perhaps emboldened by the prospect of a common goal helping him get closer with his daughter, Felix dives into the Dean problem with reckless abandon, intent on uncovering the truth. He directs his sizeable resources at things like hiring a private investigator to tail Dean, much to Laura’s horror. Dissatisfied with the third-party reconnaissance efforts, Felix decides to take matters into his own hands. In a whimsical sequence that wouldn’t seem out of place in one of the Wes Anderson films that Murray has graced with his presence, Felix pulls up to Laura’s home in a bright red Alfa Romeo convertible, announcing that they shall be tailing Dean that evening to watch for any suspicious activity after he called saying he had to attend a work dinner.
Sitting in the open-top Italian convertible, ridiculously nibbling on caviar, the father-daughter pair engage in a heart to heart. Frustrated with the paranoia Felix seems all too happy to encourage in her, Laura lashes out at her father, who she still holds a degree of resentment for given the manner in which he deserted her mother. We learn that Felix himself had engaged in an extramarital affair that tore his family apart and can begin to understand that his crusade against Dean’s alleged infidelity bears the marks of both self-flagellation and an attempt at reparations. Thrust into a high-speed chase after spotting Dean get into a cab with Fiona, the pair end the evening with tensions high after getting stopped by police (in trademark Felix-fashion, he manages to talk himself out of the encounter with a light slap on the wrist).
Familial conflict aside, Laura remains uneasy when she learns that Dean will be spending her birthday on the road for work. He betrays little if any regret about his impending absence, seeming more excited about the career-shifting prospect of the trip than his wife’s evident deflation.
The day of Laura’s birthday passes with no fanfare until Dean FaceTimes his wife and kids as she’s putting them to bed. Making a big show of getting the girls to get the present he’s prepared for Laura, Dean shows just how out of touch he is with his wife’s emotions. Looking at the big box in front of her, Laura’s hope for something that might betray that Dean has spared her the slightest thought is dashed when she unwraps the box to reveal a new-fangled kitchen mixer appliance she is decidedly not elated to receive. Given the amount of time she spends doing household tasks while Dean takes flashy business trips, it’s no surprise to think she might be less than happy to receive something that just signals more work.
The climax takes us to Mexico, where Dean has travelled for work with Fiona. Felix convinces Laura that they must follow Dean there to catch him red-handed if he’s up to something. Thinking they’ve finally caught him when they spot Fiona in what should be Dean’s room, Laura and Felix besiege the unsuspecting Englishwoman. Surprised to see Laura, Fiona explains that Dean had missed his family after wrapping up the business deal ahead of schedule and decided to fly home early, leaving her and her friend with his nice suite.
Left unbearably frustrated at this news, Laura turns her anger at her father who she feels let the situation spiral out of control. Not content with having ruined his own marriage, Laura felt that he had possibly ruined her own. The pair leave Mexico “on the rocks.”
Back in New York, in a truly bewildering turn, it is Dean who is upset at Laura for suspecting him of cheating. Deflecting any responsibility for having neglected his wife, Dean admonished Laura for suspecting him of sneaking behind her back and explained that he simply had been working hard in a bid to prove himself to her and the kids. This hardly explains the lack of care he showed his wife while cavorting around with Fiona (even if it was just platonic) but Laura somehow stomachs this and moves on.
The ease of the denouement is perhaps the lone gripe I have with the film. Laura was justified in feeling aggrieved at the lack of attention shown to her amidst the dual responsibility of both caring for the children and working on her own writing. The swiftness with which Dean brushes off her complaint about having to adjust to writing in the day after having written in the evening points to a troubling lack of empathy and, in turn, the dearth of passion created by his obsession with work. But perhaps this is the movie’s attempt at saying that there are some problems that one must brush aside in marriage if it is to work — either forgive and forget, or bear the neurotic consequences.
Dean won back some goodwill from both Laura and I, when he atoned for his horrible birthday gift by bestowing her with a beautiful Cartier watch. It was a fitting redemption arc after Felix and Laura had suspected him of attending the Cartier store to buy a gift for Fiona on a previous occasion. Should any potential sugar mama’s be reading this, I would not turn my nose up at a Cartier Tank.
A light-hearted affair infused with all the whimsy that Rashida Jones and Bill Murray’s chemistry can muster, On The Rocks is both escapist and refreshingly realistic. In its examination of the troubles that come with normative conceptions of monogamy, the film unpacks the travails that can plague seemingly harmonious relationships, and reminds us all to pay more attention to our significant others.