Amy Nicholson “Mack & Rita,” the third film by Sundance darling Katie Aselton, is a bewildering generational culture-war comedy that sides with every j’accuse that baby boomers hurl at millennials.
Mack (Elizabeth Lail), an awkward author turned reluctant influencer, describes herself as a “70-year-old in the body of a 30-year-old.” She tiptoes through life terrified to be out of step with her cohorts’ harsh judgments.
Here, according to screenwriters Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh (both of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” who aren’t so much satirizing stereotypes about their own demographic as endorsing them), millennials recoil at reading, diners, scarves, carpeting, silence, sensible shoes, chain restaurants and non-conformity.
In one scene, 50% of millennials don’t even understand the word “lothario.” Exhausted from the pressure to sport thigh-high, spike-heeled snakeskin boots to a bottomless mimosa brunch, Mack stumbles across a shady huckster (“Red Rocket” star Simon Rex), collapses in his regression tank — and emerges in the body of Diane Keaton.
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