2 out of 5 stars
Like most businesses, publishing is a hostile world where many fail and few succeed. Yet, people buy into the belief that everyone has a book in them that is waiting to get out. Fuelling this dream is an industry that is constantly looking for the next Harry Potter series or, at a minimum, The Diary of a Wimpy Kid catalogue. This is where we find young publisher Lucy Stanbridge (Aubrey Plaza), trying to salvage her father’s literary empire. She chose to follow the path of young adult fiction with her newest writers, but flounders away the publishing house's reputation along the way. Lucy desperately needs a hit or her company will be taken over by corporate sharks who want to capitalise on the company’s vast library of former best sellers.
In a frenzied attempt to find an answer, Lucy and her assistant, Rachel (Ellen Wong), begin to look through their current writers for a potential solution to their publications pipeline problem. They come upon the author who put this publishing label on the map, Harris Shaw (Michael Caine). He is a reclusive curmudgeon who has not written a book since his initial classic was penned 40 years earlier. Despite decades in isolation, the publisher seeks him out and reminds the writer of his original contract. This pressure does not motivate him at first, but in his time, Shaw finally delivers his latest work to Lucy’s desk called The Future is X-rated. Upon this discovery, Lucy and Rachel must do all they can to get this book to press and start a tour with this grumpy alcoholic writer as the drawcard.
To think of Micheal Caine as a cranky elderly author does not take much of a stretch of the imagination. It is his performance that makes this whole film bearable. Yet, even with his convincing surliness as the driving force of this screenplay, this celebrated actor cannot make up for the weaknesses of this project. Most notably, Caine and Aubrey Plaza's lack of chemistry that is meant to grow throughout the story. One that never becomes convincing enough for the audience to care about them at all. Still, this is not the weakest part of the film, that has to be credited to the casting of Plaza in the first place. She does her best to convince the world that she is a hard-hitting businesswoman, but all she does is come off as a sorority sister who is out of her depth. Where Caine makes his role look effortless, Plaza merely looks like she is trying to keep up and nothing she does is convincing in the end.
In her first film directing, Lina Roessler does a noble job at managing a less than appealing pair of protagonists and an ungainly script. The actress turned director works to develop the relationship between the two leads, which is meant to turn into an uncommon father-daughter connection. The problem is that it never truly becomes believable as Cain’s character becomes more self-destructive as the story progresses, while neither character ever wins over the audience. There are humorous moments and some captivating prose thrown around. In the end, this is less of a best seller and more of a bargain bin option for the viewer.
Reel Dialogue: How do you deal with difficult people?
One thing that can be said about Best Sellers is that it does show a way to deal with the difficult ones in your life. It is a reality of life that we all will have to deal with difficult people at some time or another. Harris Shaw proves to be the epitome of the condescending, argumentative, belligerent, and caustic person we all know. In a way, he represents someone in everyone's life and does test our levels of patience, love, and grace.
We can see within the example of Jesus that there are different ways to respond to challenging people. You can read up on how He addresses situations that involve people similar to and even worse than Harris Shaw. Some examples were to show authority under control and He used correction when necessary (John 8:47). Still, there were times with silence was the best tactic (John 8:6), others that involved asking questions (Mark 11:28–29). Some situations had him pointing them to the words of the Bible (Mark 10:2–3) or there were times where he merely told a story (Luke 7:40–42).
Most will admit that dealing with difficult people is unavoidable. Instead of avoiding them or getting in a fight, suppose you are to look to the example of Jesus. He manages to show various examples of how to deal with varied situations. We can see that the best methods usually involve love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control.
