Couldn’t Be Happier to See “The Visit”

Grandma’s demented and Grandpa’s incontinent in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit. A mother’s (Kathryn Hahn) estranged parents get in touch after twenty years, insisting on having their grandchildren over for a weeklong visit. Already, I feel for these kids. At a shade over six-feet tall, my grandma was an imposing woman. My brother and I visited her once for a weekend without our parents, and it didn’t go well. But I never saw her naked, nor did I have to worry about her baking us alive in her oven. Can’t say the same for the teenaged siblings in The Visit. Seeing The Visit made me realize how much I miss my grandparents, and how much more I respect them for not trying to kill me when I spent time with them. RIP grandma, and grandpa, and Yiya, and Papu, too. Disclaimer: The Visit does not accurately portray the elderly, or grandparents, including long lost ones.

Tyler (Ex Oxenbould) and Becca (Olivia DeLonge), the two grandkids, run into problems early and often during their visit. Nana (Deanna Dunagan) crawls around the house naked at night and scratches at the doors. Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) keeps a collection of used diapers in his shed. Bedtime is 9:30pm and in this case it’s not nearly early enough. Pop Pop swears Nana suffers from sundowning, a symptom of Alzheimer’s that worsens at night. Nana says Pop Pop’s pooping problem is the shameful secret of a proud retired coalminer. Their connection to an ominous hospital—Maple Shade—where they volunteer, and from which strange visitors keep popping by, spells trouble. If only mom was around to help figure this out. But she’s on a cruise with a hairy chested new boyfriend, and her Skype communications are all there is to quell any worries. Everything is fine. No one is crazy. Just have another of Nana’s crazygood cheddar biscuits.

Becca is filming their visit, making a documentary of this momentous occasion, digging deeply into her mom’s sordid family history to mine it for cinematic glory. But she can’t keep her damn hands steady. The purposefully jittery camerawork is like found footage in the making. It’s nauseating. Ross McElwee she ain’t. Tyler is a little shit. He’s a white boy who raps—how droll—who makes cute decisions like replacing curse words with the names of female pop singers. This bit wasn’t funny in 40 Year-Old Virgin, and here it is less so.

Plot holes aside, The Visit is still really entertaining. There’s a twist at the end, as is expected in a Shyamalan picture. It’s a good one, but everything that happens after it is far more violent, creepy, and gross than anything preceding it. There’s ample edginess in the finish, a little “F. U.” in its tone. I wonder if it’s in response to the poor reputation Shyamalan has had ever since his two previous films, 2010’s The Last Airbender and 2013’s After Earth, bombed. I didn’t see either film, but not because of poor word of mouth. The Last Airbender is based on a Nickelodeon cartoon. Enough said. As for After Earth: simply utter “Jaden Smith” and voila, my interest disappears. The Visit is a return to the silly, scary, creative pictures of Shyamalan’s past. And I couldn’t be happier. Well, I could be happier—much happier…Just see the movie.

Man vs. Nature - A Walk in the Woods

There is only one question that you need to ask yourself before deciding to see “A Walk in the Woods”: Can you justify sitting through an utterly predictable and rather tame man vs. nature ramble in order to enjoy the affable odd-couple chemistry shared by Robert Redford and Nick Nolte?

Certainly, it is hard to resist a rare opportunity to observe these seasoned septuagenarians go at it with gusto, especially considering that the only other time Redford and Nolte have been cast mates was in the barely-seen 2013 political thriller “The Company You Keep.” Nowadays, the handsomely rough-hewn star of “North Dallas Forty” looks more like a ruddy-faced Yeti while the still-fit Sundance Kid is paying the price for all that ultraviolet glare on the ski slopes. But these guys still know how to not just hold our attention but grab it, even if their current film needs them more than they need it.

Redford, who is also a producer, initially planned on reteaming with buddy Paul Newman a decade or so ago when he began to piece together this project based on Bill Bryson’s humor-filled 1998 account of his misadventures while hiking the 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail. A reunion with his sparring partner in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Sting,” halted by Newman’s death in 2008, would have been a must-see event. But the ever-volatile and gravel-voiced Nolte and the perennially cool and smooth-talking Redford manage just fine as a bracing pair of fellow travelers.

The feminist in me initially planned to bash “A Walk in the Woods,“ directed in typical middle-of-the-road fashion by  Ken Kwapis (“He’s Just Not That Into You”)  with an unfortunate insistence on telegraphing almost every laugh. On what grounds? That both leads are at least 30 years too old for their roles since Bryson and his estranged reprobate pal, Stephen Katz, are 44 in the book.

Would Hollywood have allowed, say, Shirley MacLaine and Debbie Reynolds to headline “Bridemaids”? But then I recalled that Reese Witherspoon in last year’s “Wild” was more than 10 years older than the real Cheryl Strayed, who was 26 when she traversed the Pacific Crest Trail. Besides, genuine star power knows no expiration date and, without these esteemed seniors as a main attraction,“A Walk in the Woods” might have been unwatchable.

Whereas a solo Witherspoon in her Oscar-nominated role struggled with her inner demons as much as she did the elements, “A Walk in the Woods” is more about two unlikely acquaintances crossing paths again after a long-ago falling out caused their relationship to go astray. Redford’s wry Bryson, a popular writer of travelogues who is tired of resting on his considerable laurels while spending too much time writing forewords for other people’s books, is in a funk after attending a funeral. That is when he spies a marker for the Georgia-to-Maine trail near his New Hampshire home.

Against the wishes of his sensible British wife of 40 years (Emma Thompson, under-used as a radiator of warmth), he decides on a whim to attempt this marathon test of endurance and picks Katz to join him – primarily because none of his other friends are crazy enough to say yes. Katz, based in Bryson’s native Iowa, claims that the fact that he has several outstanding warrants against him is the reason he has volunteered to huff and puff over hill and dale. But when this recovering alcoholic and unrepentant womanizer admires the tributes and accomplishments piled up in his Bryce’s den, it is clear Katz desires some sort of reconnection as well.

Considering that Nolte’s wheezy scalawag can barely stumble out of a small plane, matters move a tad slowly at first but eventually pick up. Bryson might be a thinker and Katz a talker, but unlike “Wild,” there are few deep revelations or bouts of philosophizing along the way. Instead, amusing incidents, encounters and mishaps pile up as the companions fill in the blanks of their personal histories. Be forewarned: There is an R-rated abundance of salty language, what with Bryson prone to expressing what a bear does in the woods and Katz’s committed embrace of the F-word, as well as non-explicit frisky business implied.