When I watched The Family Fang, there was a preview for One More Time with Christopher Walken so I immediately added it to my queue and watched it. One More Time stars Amber Heard as Jude, the older daughter of a Tony Bennett like figure played by Walken. She is a singer, but lacks focus and has self-destructive tendencies. She goes to her father’s Hamptons home for the weekend. Her sister, her sister’s husband (Jude’s ex-boyfriend), her nephew and the family attorney are also there that weekend. Her father is trying to become relevant again as his latest hated wife looks on adoringly. Her father nags her to do something with her talent when he isn’t doing his best to be the center of attention. When alone, he obsessively revises his Wikipedia page. It does not take long for the viewer to realize whom Jude gets some of her worst traits from even though she hates those traits in her father.
Side note: I believe Amber Heard’s allegations so what I am about to say should not be considered a reflection of her as a human being or personal. A big premise of One More Time is the idea that Jude is sabotaging her success because she cannot reconcile success with her complicated relationship with her dad. I never believed that Jude was talented. I’m sorry, but pink hair and promiscuity does not an artist make. Those may be some shared traits on a Venn diagram with an amazing singer, but correlation does not equal causation. I’m not saying that Heard can’t sing or isn’t beautiful, but if I heard her sing anywhere, I would not think, “I wish that I could buy her music.” Without her father’s connections and others’ expectations due to DNA, Jude would still be Jude, and if Jude became successful, it would not be because she was a talented singer.
I love Christopher Walken. He could be in a movie about paint drying, and I would watch it. I love the scene where Jude thinks that she has to deliver bad news to him about his comeback, and his cynicism shines through his normally enthusiastic and hammy demeanor then he says, “You think that I don’t know.” There were levels to that scene that I would want to devote a thesis to about the nature of fame, showbiz as a profession and the psychological ramifications of being vulnerable and overexposed while simultaneously unseen. I think that the golfing plotline fell flat, especially since it is implied, and we never see the other person.
I wish that I lived in an alternate universe where we learned more about the younger sister. Kelli Garner gave the best performance in One More Time: singing alone in the car, standing at her home with her husband and son, but giving the emotion that she is in exile and not connecting, the tough scene with her stepmother where she is unyielding but feeling her pain. Garner had to project a number of complex emotions simultaneously on her face with little screen time to communicate that she was pretty empathetic and caring, not just an efficient automaton, and felt left out by everyone in her family-her father, her husband, her son. Garner stole One More Time without chewing the scenery.
Only check out One More Time if you are a fan of the cast, but it can be an underwritten experience that relies as much on the audience’s imagination as the talents of those who created it.