Al Pacino plays the misanthropic Manglehorn, an ageing locksmith plodding through life’s last act, hanging onto the memories of a love he lost over forty years ago. He hates his job. He can’t connect with his wealthy son born from a marriage to a woman he also hated. His only joys in life are talking with his fluffy white cat and getting free doughnuts at the bank.
The film is a bizarre juxtaposition of conflicting styles. Whilst shot on real, sun-bleached Texas locations, gaudy neon lighting bombards almost every scene. Most of the bit players aren’t actors, but real life pet vets and war vets, adding to the realism of Manglehorn’s well-worn world, yet several scenes straight out of a fairytale populate the film. A man publicly serenades a woman in a bank. Manglehorn wanders through a ten car pile up covered in broken watermelons. A mime aides Manglehorn when he accidentally locks his keys in his van. Pacino somehow climbs a tree to sit on a branch with his beloved cat.
Honest and low key performances from Pacino and Holly Hunter are washed away by extended sequences of Manglehorn voiceover that would make a first year film student blush. The hyper realism and hyper surrealism never ever marry. Yet the film’s cardinal sin is constantly getting down on its knees, begging and pleading for the audience to notice its ham-fisted symbolism. Doing less would have said more.
To make a long story short (warning: potential spoilers), Manglehorn sidelines his son and publicly humiliates Holly Hunter’s character on a date – then, without any sort of struggle, turns it all around in minutes, finding peace after decades of being a miserable bastard. This is a dreary version of 1997’s As Good As It Gets without focus, humour or any redeeming value.