Starring the irreplaceable Susan Sarandon in one of her very best turns, The Meddler also features writer/director Lorene Scafaria as a filmmaker of great wit and warmth.
 
Mums don’t get their due on the big screen. While popular of late is the “monster mum” as seen in Precious and August: Osage County, missing is the portrayal of those mums who love unconditional, work unrewarded, and support to the point of nagging annoyance. The kind portrayed in The Meddler, the breakthrough comedy drama from Lorene Scafaria whose own mother was the inspiration for Marnie (Susan Sarandon), a delightfully charming and down to Earth portrayal of an aging mother and widow facing a crossroads in a life dedicated to the support of others yet lacking the attention for her own personal self.

Sure, it sounds life Oprah-esque claptrap, but as written and directed by Scafaria and performed by Sarandon, The Meddler is charming, tug-the-heart engaging stuff, that’s as authentic in its emotions as it’s entertaining in its filmmaking. In short, a rarity of character and tone.

The film follows Marnie as she relocates to Los Angeles to restart her life and stay close to her screenwriter daughter Lori (Rose Byrne). With Lori wanting nothing more than space from her admittingly overbearing mother, the financially secure Marnie (a posthumous gift from her loving late husband) focuses her optimistic love and financial resources on a variety of people in need, while herself falling in love with retired police officer and divorcee Randall (J.K. Simmons, charmingly good in a supporting role).

Sarandon adds a tremendously wonderful performance to an already iconic career, filled with genuine emotion and charming spirit, with her Marnie a character of embracing warmth both comforting and smothering. Not only does it exemplify that such a character can lead a movie, but it also proves that more roles for cinema’s elder women of the screen is indeed a good and rewarding thing.

With her second stint as direct, Scafaria has found her voice as a filmmaker able to convey sentimentality without resorting to cornball cutesiness, and humanity without the need for “grit” to achieve authenticity. Combined with her midas touch on drawing excellent performances from talented actors, and The Meddler proves to be not only a film to seek out and watch, but Scafaria as a filmmaker to laud.