Here Today

Arriving a few months after 2020’s dementia-heavy awards season slate, Here Today adds yet another perspective to the resurgent memory loss subgenre: that of a near pure comedy.

Directed by Billy Crystal and co-written with his former SNL colleague Alan Zweibel, based on the latter’s short story “The Prize,” this comfort food in cinematic form stars Crystal as Charlie Berns, a legendary writer who’s by far the oldest on an SNL-like sketch show and in denial about his fading cognitive skills.

Besides the joy of seeing Crystal onscreen again in a project with decent exposure, Here Today greatly benefits from his chemistry with Tiffany Haddish as Emma Payge, a singer with whom he has a hilarious meet-cute and develops a relationship that’s refreshingly ambiguous in its romantic/platonic leanings.

In the process, the extent of Charlie’s mental difficulties grow clearer, as well as the cause of his strained bonds with his grown children, Francine (Laura Benanti, Supergirl) and Rex (Penn Badgley, Gossip Girl).

Crystal intelligently approaches these flashbacks, staging them from young Charlie’s POV while using Crystal’s voice, which allows Charlie’s budding romance with Carrie (Louisa Krause, Billions) to believably unfold without resorting to the distracting casting of a youthful Crystal lookalike, the employment of digital de-aging, or worse.

But while Here Again succeeds with the bulk of Charlie’s disease’s tragic elements and in practically every humorous situation — moments where he gets to flash his still very strong comedic gifts at work are especially lovely — it doesn’t quite stick some of the dramatic bits, namely in ensemble settings.

Blame falls mainly on cardboard performances by Benanti, Badgley, and Audrey Hsieh as Francine’s daughter Lindsay, all of whom might have benefited from more guidance from Crystal. Still, these empty moments are far outweighed by the film’s stronger elements, which earn its place alongside The Father, Dick Johnson is Dead, and Supernova as quality recent depictions of minds that aren’t what they used to be.

Grade: B. Rated PG-13. Now playing at Biltmore Grande

(Photo: Sony Pictures)