Here Today: Billy Crystal Directs Himself in a Blandly Good-hearted Manifesto About Aging, Dementia and Losing the Funny

By Jim Slotek

Rating: C-plus

At this point in a storied career, Billy Crystal can direct a movie if he wants to, and drag in famous friends like Kevin Kline, Barry Levinson and Sharon Stone for walk-ons.

So, what does someone with almost a half-century of showbiz under his belt dying to say? Growing old isn’t for sissies. Memories are fragile. Young people think they invented comedy. And there is no relationship too improbable that you can’t squeeze a little love and caring out of it.

Here Today is the movie Crystal directs, a genial, monotone of good-heartedness that isn’t as funny as it wants to be or needs to be, but hits some truths about the subject of age and dementia, while maintaining its mild smile.

Tiffany Haddish and Billy Crystal in Here Today.

Like his unsuccessful 1992 feature directing debut, Mr. Saturday Night, Here Today is Crystal splashing about in waters he knows best – the comedy industry. In this case, he’s the long-time writer of a live sketch comedy show clearly based on Saturday Night Live (on which Crystal once starred), right down to the news segment. It’s co-written by veteran SNL writer Alan Zweibel.

Crystal’s character, Charlie Burnz, is indulged, suffered and/or sneered at by the bullpen of young writers, who consider him past his prime and losing it. Secretly that is literally true. Charlie has been diagnosed with early onset dementia and has begun fashioning coping mechanisms for walking around New York City, and posting bulletin board pictures with names of his loved ones so he can remember them.

It’s a losing cause, and one of the most poignant moments sees Charlie joining a movie show panel to recall the anniversary of a (fictional) hit romantic comedy he’d written for director Levinson and stars Kline and Stone. On-camera, he blanks on his former colleagues, but quickly deflects it into a “bit.” 

Into Charlie’s life walks the irrepressible Emma Payge (Tiffany Haddish), a blues singer who won a lunch with the semi-celebrity, even though she has no idea who he is (and has trouble even telling old white guys apart). In a film where “antic” is the prime motivator for character development, Payge ends up in the hospital on their first “date” and quickly becomes one of the few people Charlie consistently remembers. They develop a friendship that is as close as one can get to a romance without actually being one.

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

The entire premise of Here Today is ripe for big bites of acting. (Charlie’s adult kids don’t know about his diagnosis and think his forgetfulness about family matters is just a continuation of his lifetime of being an absent dad). But really, there are only nibbles. Characters go from profoundly pissed at him to warmly understanding on a dime. 

Even Charlie’s big Network moment, where he loses it on live TV and goes on a viral rant, doesn’t have nearly the impact it could have.

The most interesting thing is how unfunny the fictionalized version of Saturday Night Live is. In studio scenes, the audience laughs hysterically at lame premises even laugh-tracks wouldn’t laugh at. You’d almost think it’s on purpose.

For her part, Haddish seems the most committed to the goings-on, nailing her big moment – in which she livens up Charlie’s granddaughter’s bat mitzvah with an old-people sing-along rendition of Janis Joplin’s Piece of My Heart - to the horror of Charlie’s daughter (Laura Benanti).

But good intentions can only carry a movie so far. Other than a few familiar notes for those of us who’ve had to deal with loved ones’ decline, Here Today lacks authentic moments or real drama.

Here Today. Directed by Billy Crystal. Written by Billy Crystal and Alan Zweibel. Starring Billy Crystal, Tiffany Haddish and Laura Benanti. Available on digital and DVD.Laura Benanti