A famous Romanian actor was recently asked ‘what are you doing lately?’. He replied: ‘What can I do? I play roles of old men’. This is probably what Michael Caine would answer in these last years. I confess that he is an actor I was not crazy about in his youth and mine, but whom I began to like as he advanced in his career, and I find his last roles, the ‘old age’ ones, formidable. They are now joined by the role of the writer Harris Shaw in the film ‘Best Sellers‘ made in 2021 by Lina Roessler, an actress who has passed from the other side of the camera, in her feature film debut. Acting raises the level of the film and gives us the opportunity to admire Caine again in a consistent and complex role, one of those roles that all actors can wish for when they reach their ninth decade of life and seventh decade of acting .
Harris Shaw is a novelist who became famous thanks to a single book written many decades ago. He lives isolated in a mortgaged house on which he has not paid the installments for a long time and his only company is a cat. Lucy Stanbridge has inherited from her father the publishing house that published Shaw, but times have changed, the books are not selling much anymore and the business is on the verge of being acquired by a bigger competitor. The two find each other in a moment of crisis for both of them: he needs money, she needs a book to save the publishing house. They will be printing his latest manuscript under an old contract that also includes a launch tour with autographs and readings by the author. The problem is Shaw hates events like this, hates critics, hates pretty much everyone and pretty much anything but Black Label whiskey. What chance does a new book, even by a famous author, have in a world where people no longer read it? What is the fate of those for whom books are a profession – writers and editors?
Those are the main characters and that’s pretty much the premise. Try an exercise in imagination as to how the story of a film from today’s American studios will evolve from here. Well, there’s a good chance you’ve guessed. The screenplay written by Anthony Grieco is extremely predictable.The main thread of the story, the scene that follows, and sometimes even the words are exactly what you expect according to the recipes printed in Hollywood. Even the behavior of the protagonist intended to be original and unpredictable is horribly predictable. Satire on the world of publishing, writers and publishers and – why not? – the public of readers and non-readers could have been much more sharper – there is much to satirize in this world of book production and consumption. Lina Roessler strives to extract what she can from this text and this non-conflict, and she mostly succeeds. It doesn’t feel like a first-time director’s feature film. The exterior shots of a consistently frozen winter in the American Northeast wrap the story in an appropriate atmosphere. What saves this film, however, are the excellent acting performances. Aubrey Plaza manages to look no more intimidated than the role demands in her relationship with the old but famous man next to her. Michael Caine is again superb. According to some rumors, he intended this role to be his last on screen. It’s been two years since ‘Best Seller‘ was filmed and three other films have been added (one released, two in the works) to his filmography. I am very happy that he changed his mind.