Crystal and Haddish make good company in pleasant "Here Today"

Here Today (2021)

“Here Today” is one of those “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” movies, and it mostly works. As a May-December friendship dramedy, it’s consistently pleasant and amusing, sometimes touching and sweet, and ultimately bittersweet. Inspired by Alan Zweibel’s short story “The Prize,” Billy Crystal (2012's "Parental Guidance") directs his first theatrically released feature since 1995’s “Forget Paris” from a script he co-wrote with Zweibel. In doing so, he pulls along comic powerhouse Tiffany Haddish (2019's "The Kitchen") for relaxed chemistry that of an unlikely (non)couple. When it tries to marry dementia and its core relationship with behind-the-scenes sketch comedy and other familial drama, "Here Today" is certainly uneven. But where it counts, Crystal and Haddish make good company. They are able to earn laughs and find notes of emotional truth.

Crystal plays veteran TV, play, and film comedy writer Charlie Burnz, who’s privately dealing with the early stages of dementia. Every morning from his Manhattan home, he keeps track of every turn on his on-foot commute to work: the writer’s room of a late-night sketch comedy show. He has monthly check-ins with his doctor friend (the lovely Anna Deavere Smith), but Charlie hasn’t yet told his son, Rex (Penn Badgley), and definitely not his grudge-holding daughter, Francine (Laura Benanti), who haven’t noticed. Forgetting to RSVP to his granddaughter’s bat mitzvah should be one red flag. Literally, Charlie is running out of words, until he stumbles into a friendship with an up-and-coming street vocal performer named Emma Payge (Haddish). She wins a lunch date with Charlie at a charity auction that her ex-boyfriend bid $22 for, and after an unexpectedly severe seafood allergy sends her to the ER, Charlie and Emma become great friends. Or, at least, Emma keeps popping up, and her energy, generosity, and listening ear end up making quite an impact on his life before his memory completely goes.

Billy Crystal has still got a quick wit about him, confirming how much he has been missed these days on screen (it’s probably time to catch up with last year’s “Standing Up, Falling Down,” huh?). Like Crystal’s own brand of comedy (and the jazzy score he employs), Charlie is old-school, still using a typewriter and cracking wise about how he can use an iPhone, as long as he doesn’t have to text, call, or send out an e-mail. Existing in Charlie’s orbit, besides everyone, is predominantly Emma, played by the indomitable Tiffany Haddish. Though the blowsy Emma deserves to be more fully written, Haddish cannot help but be a warm, energetic, and charismatic comedic presence. Thanks to Haddish, Emma comes across as a live-wire and a real person, but viewers shouldn’t be hard on themselves if they start to ask if she’s a figment of Charlie's declining faculties. This isn’t that kind of movie, though. This is the kind of movie, however, that awkwardly and needlessly questions Charlie and Emma’s probably platonic relationship. Everyone they come in contact with thinks they are a romantic couple, and it’s not a stretch that anyone would think that, but the script never quite knows how to handle that idea without seeming wishy-washy.

“Here Today” can be unfocused and thin in places—and, yes, it’s hard to compare to “The Father” as films dealing with dementia go—but the getting-there holds just enough pleasures. Charlie’s dementia is surely treated as a scary reality—and a level of guilt comes to fruition—but the device of Charlie starting to relive memories with his late wife Carrie (Louisa Krause) stands as a nice idea that seems cloying and oddly framed at first. From giving birth at a museum to frolicking on the beach to arguing outside a Broadway theater, Carrie just keeps looking and talking directly to the camera, as Crystal’s voice can be heard off-screen. These moments between Charlie and Carrie feel so true and intimate that eventually there’s a poignancy to the device. Better are scenes where Charlie’s commute route gets thwarted by road construction, sending him into a spiral of major confusion and anxiety, or Charlie’s tirade on live TV where he practically blacks out but lets his staff writer know about his irksomely incorrect inflection. In another standout scene, Charlie participates in an audience Q&A, alongside director Barry Levinson and actors Sharon Stone and Kevin Kline all playing themselves, to celebrate the anniversary of a feature film he co-wrote. When he can’t remember any of their names, the scene surprises without erupting into melodrama or humiliation.

When Charlie and Emma just get to banter and hang out, "Here Today" is most comfortable. It almost feels like an episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” that shoehorns in a story around it. Their banter is amusing, as is their trip to Madam Tussauds where they goof on and pose with celebrity wax figures. It’s the comedy in the writer’s room and in front of a live audience that just sort of sits there. As it sometimes happens in movies about stand-up comics or comedy show writers, the jokes on the sketch TV show are never funny, as if intended to be, yet the entire live audience erupts into laughter. Even a clip between Sharon Stone and Kevin Kline from the critically acclaimed movie that has made Charlie be seen as a brilliant writer is bizarrely unfunny. Ultimately, it’s a testament to Crystal and Haddish that you want to keep spending time with Charlie and Emma. Alas, it just can’t last.

Grade: B -

Stage 6 Films is releasing “Here Today” (117 min.) into theaters on May 7, 2021.