Hateship Loveship notices that potential in Wiig without ever nurturing it to a compelling angle. It's a quirky indie dramedy in all the worst ways. So many smart choices, meandering to a nothing conclusion.
Based on a short story by Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro, Hateship Loveship stars Wiig as Johanna, a caretaker-for-hire who jumps from hospice to nannying when a family patriarch (Nick Nolte) requests her services. With his granddaughter Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld) coming of age under the wings of her rebellious friend Edith (Sami Gayle) and his son-in-law, Ken (Guy Pearce), burning out like an ashy cigarette butt, Mr. McCauley seeks back-up to fix his broken home. On paper, Johanna's the perfect choice. Integrated into the family, she's a silent, unknowing destroyer of worlds. Hard to blame her.
Director Liza Johnson, working from a script by Smart People writer Mark Poirier, approaches Hateship Loveship with the same delicacy she demonstrated in her 2011 PTSD drama Return. As Johnson walked that tightrope between crippling distress and melodrama, Hateship Loveship required warmth and humor without feeling twee. The approach might be too gentle. Wiig's introverted portrayal of Johanna comes off as an underwritten caricature of someone on the “spectrum.” Not quite Rain Man, but lost in her imagination to the point where she'll make out with her own mirror image.
Sabitha and Edith stoke Johanna's romantic daydreaming after intercepting a flirtatious note written to Ken and tricking her with a forged love letter response. The snail mail pen palship escalates to an impassioned e-mail correspondance, where the teenage duo can easily manipulate Johanna's malleable emotions. Though the caretaker struggles to rein in Sabitha from the outside of the scam, her infatuation with the girl's drug-addicted, scam-artist dad prompts her to ditch her job for a love connection. Johanna flees to Chicago, only to find a befuddled Ken... who has no idea what she's talking about.It's easy to imagine Hateship Loveship as elegant prose detailing sensory observations and the nuances of human connection. Poirier's adaptation wants to capture that same feel, but erring on the side of introspection sucks all the vivid personality away from the actors. With this and her surprisingly natural work in 3 Days to Kill, Steinfeld is shaping up to be the spunky, confused, abrasive, blossoming, awkward, charming embodiment of every high schooler ever. She gets it without “playing high school” and watching her toy with Wiig or heart-to-heart with the grumbling Nolte is a delight.
Pearce's grungy suavity, overcoming shallow motivation, sells why Wiig might throw her life away for a downward spiraling junkie like Ken. His wife passed away, he's watching his daughter slip away, and Pearce carries that weight around as he tries to play cool. Late in the film, when Poirier has forcefully pushed the characters into alignment, Johanna's caretaker instincts break through Ken's exteriors. There are hurdles — Jennifer Jason Leigh appears as a feisty, fellow addict who provides Ken with easy escapes — but the collided pair of misfits small talk their way to revelations.
Johnson shoots the film with wistful simplicity. Production flourishes of drab homes and sweet acoustics say, “Yes, this is an independent film.” By standing out of her actors way, Johnson finds beats of natural humor — almost impossible to avoid with Wiig in tow. And yet Hateship Loveship is as flat as they come, a reverent treatment of a revered author's revered works. That may not even be true (Munro fans must weigh in with book vs. movie comparisons), but it feels stilted by its own dramatic tiptoeing. We've seen Wiig, Pearce, Steinfeld chew up heavy scenery. Hateship Loveship needed to let them.
