User Reviews

Being someone fond of Vera Farmiga's work on Bates Motel and being a fan sister Taissa on American Horror Story and The Bling Ring, I was also drawn to the film because Vera's little sister Taissa is in this. So, despite a trailer that didn't look all that appealing, I decided to see this movie. Below, we find out if that ended up being a good idea.

To begin, the Farmiga sisters play mother and daughter, which is comical to me. Realize though, there is an 18+ year age difference and it strangely works well. Vera plays Edith who is a liberal, almost bohemian, and yet holds some of the neurotic nature of Norma Bates, which I guess maybe her Vera's signature? Taissa, on the other hand, has a slightly intense character, named Audrey, which has some of Edith's traits, but possibly also her unseen father. Alongside them are George (played by Andy Garcia) and his son Conrad (played by Spencer Lofranco). Both characters play opposite to their similarly aged counterparts with George being straitlaced, conservative and a bit fearful of life, while Conrad is far more laid back and charming than Taissa's Audrey. In a way, Conrad seems like he could be Edith's son and Audrey seems like she should be George's daughter.

That dynamic isn't played up in the movie, but the whole idea of opposites attract is. However, rather than it be a story about two families on a college tour which has the kids fall in love, it is the parents. Edith and George seems to be in unhappy relationships with their spouses, add on their kids leaving, and you realize that perhaps the one thing keeping them in their marriage is leaving and perhaps they are realizing that with the kid gone, they are stuck with this person who may no longer love them or who they may no longer love. But, it doesn't get that deep until about mid-film. Before that, Edith's character is an embarrassment, but not in a too over the top fashion, and George is just a bore. As things go on though, Edith and George pretty much steal the movie with them leaving their kids behind and having their own tour of Middleton. This leads to confessions, romance and the kids being left to their own devices which more so puts them in the shadows of Edith and George's story than allowing them to hold their own.

Now, one thing I must say is that this film is pleasantly silly. To explain my perception of pleasantly silly, take note of how Ellen Degeneres does comedy. It isn't offensive, but can be a tad bit mean spirited. This mostly comes from George and Edith, but others take part occasionally as well. Another thing worth noting is that the first 45 minutes of the movie are pretty much the best part of the film. It feels like it had a smooth progression from a silly little film to getting to deeper matters that Edith and George were having which explained why their characters were the way they were.

But, while the film did well in handling George and Edith, it dropped the ball on Conrad and Audrey. The first half of the movie, pretty much, is dedicated to the parents and then the kids begin to get a stronger focus in the second half. The issue is, in comparison to their parents, only Conrad is really likable. Taissa, on the other hand, gets a little too over dramatic, and admittedly Vera has one scene in which she seems to need to be reign in a little bit as well, but Taissa's Audrey has a bad mix of snarkiness, Edith's Type A personality traits, but lacks the charm which keeps her from becoming an annoyance. So, if anything, it maybe more so the character than Taissa's acting, but I'm sort of iffy on giving her a pass. Also, after the first half, George and Edith begin to falter, character-wise, as you realize that her flirting and him following her around, is developing into something. Now, if they were both single that would be fine, but with them both mentioning spouses, it leads you to believe that the tour became, for them, an escape from the issues and responsibilities of adulthood. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I felt a bit disappointed since they had a bond because of their kids and marital troubles, so I didn't understand why they needed to fall for one another. It really made it seem, like in a lot of films, that men and women can't just be friends, but must explore and try other possibilities, even if briefly.

Overall: Rental or TV

Truth be told, no one should expect an award for their performance in the movie, but at the same time it isn't like this film feels like something to keep your name out there or will become something anyone involved will be mocked for. It is just an average movie that wants to entertain you with a decent story. Vera, I feel, with her flair for dramatics and the silliness of her character, leads us through this movie and does so well. Andy plays a good opposite to her and really, if you take the kids out of the movie and take away one scene of them, Edith and George smoking weed together, you got a really good film about parents dealing with their kids growing up. But, with Tasissa's and Spencer's character getting more screen time, which seems weakly written in comparison, it does bring the film down a bit to the point where you sort of wish after the 50 minute mark they cut everything up until the fun for Edith and George has to end for they have to go back to their children and their lives. Still, overall it is worth watching despite my criticisms.

This "little film" is surprisingly ambitious — and effective.

It subverts the college student rom-com by focusing on the parents at their nest emptying. For both generations this new liberation can be terrifying. As Edith tells another parent, the kids' departure leaves the parents realizing how little they know or are connected to their 18-year partners. The theatrical scene Edith plays with George reveals how a marriage can hide lives of quiet desperation. In the crowning irony, the two college roommates coolly watch the two adults getting stoned and acting wacky, under their knowing eye.

The film also replays the old Benedict/Beatrice device of characters who initially snipe at each other gradually discovering themselves simpatico. George and Edith begin and end as opposites, but they switch poles. At first he's the rod-ass and she's the bohemian free spirit. She cures his fear of heights, he her temptation to be totally carefree. By the end he's loosened up enough to want to have an affair with her and she retreats to the safer ground of self-denial.

Their respective kids replay that shift. Conrad leaves the security of his studly "million dollar smile" to pursue his disembodied, faceless role on campus radio. Wilder and more precocious Audrey takes to heart her idol's distinction between healthy ambition and unhealthy obsession.

In both those relationships — and in the respective parents' scenes with their kids — there is ample demonstration of what Audrey reads from her idol's book: linguistics must deal with what is not said as much as with what is. Heard sentences are meaty but those unheard are meatier. Hence the really delicate work in facial expression and body language throughout, especially as the leads increasingly open up and connect. Hence the confessional Truth behind the two parents stage "performance."

The campus name, Middleton, puts all its characters in some middle. The two teens are pivoting into adulthood. The two parents are turning from the stability of their unfulfilling marriages into self-realization — or not. Both turn passive at the moment of decision, as imaged in their letting their kids drive. When George prefers the long way home he's taking more time to face the life he dreads, to put behind the happier alternative he has just encountered. Informed by the reflections on French films, we don't get the usual American film's happy ending. But the chance remains. We're hoping this one-shot might lead to a Richard Linklater trilogy where we can follow these so very touching and appealing lovers into a happier afterlife.

Finally the film is about what a college education should be. The two parents get a college education in one day when they meet new people, try out each other's alien perspectives and experience, act out exploratory expressions of themselves, learn to breathe more freely and deeply, get new insight into themselves and each other, test experimental things they never would in their outside (aka "real") lives, and end up significantly altered, illuminated, broadened in understanding and emotion, whichever road they pursue.

It's an idyllic university, a slice of heaven, so the disciplines represented are literature, language, horticulture, the arts, and the pulse is in the library. The linguistics (!) professor's office is a jaw-dropper. The salutary absence of Business, High Tech, a football team, make the setting as Edenic as the two leads' romantic discovery. For more see www.yacowar.blogspot.com

Adam Rogers's "At Middleton" (otherwise "Just One Day") tries to encapsulate - and build on - the feelings people have when their kids (in this case only children of 2 marriages) go on/off to university. Since a great many of us know that feeling, and all its emotional, practical and financial (!) nuances, there is a ready-made audience out there somewhere for Edith Martin taking daughter Audrey, and for George Hartman taking son Conrad, to a chocolate-box-looking place of learning (easy enough on the eye, certainly) but trying vaguely to make out it's Ivy League-ish, when actually it's far from it.

If you're feeling the symmetry in the above description, you may not be surprised to learn that it's writ large in the film, given that Conrad (a competent-enough Spencer Lofranco) is the rather non-academic though likeable-enough son of a rather stiff and intense (heart-surgeon) father - played by Andy Garcia; while Audrey (an OK Taissa Farmiga) is the driven, bright, tetchy and intellectual daughter of a slightly off-the-rails and a little bit too uninihibited mother (Vera Farmiga - yes (and no) - this actress is the SISTER in real life).

If you go on to imagine that the kids are going to help each other out, well that's so only partly; while if you think that George will help Edith get serious, while Edith assists George in lightening up, well you'd be more correct, but in fact this pair are both going to end up experiencing both bliss and extreme heartache in the course of "Just One Day".

A big part of any enjoyment you're going to extract from this therefore lies in the plausibility of a romance that can grow in literally the space of hours. On the other hand, this may be a romance waiting to happen, propelled along by desperation (and the aforesaid emotions of that unique "kids leave the nest" moment), all the more so given that both George and Edith are only now really admitting to themselves that they are not happy in their marriages, and are not far from a conviction that they might actaully have wasted - or underlived - a major chunk of their lives.

Those who have been through a bit of life are going to see that there is some mileage in this story. The young-cum-old and handsome/ordinary Garcia - whose input into this film goes beyond acting - has the potential to carry this off, while Vera Farmiga (rightly) looks a bit careworn by everything, but has a certain grace, and indeed a coquettish attractiveness she seems able to switch on and off as the mood takes her. They make a pretty enough couple, and at their most intensive moments (of which there are several) they are able to convince and even move us.

Unfortunately, however, the makers' desire to persuade us that there are funny and even slapstick moments in all of this largely fail, and occasionally fall flat on their faces. This is not merely the case for the stars either - several other characters seem to switch from serious to silly to standup and back again in the space of a few lines, and this is jarringly non-cohesive.

However, we out here in audience-land can "piece out their imperfections with our thoughts" if we so choose, I guess. (Though one is entitled to ask why we should have to do that!) And in so doing, we might put ourselves in the situation of attractive but somewhat subdued people who realise the wonderful time they might have together, but have only the briefest of brief encounters in which to experience that. Nobody who is not made of stone can ignore that entirely, though my choice of terms in the last sentence is of course non-random, and we have seen the odd (better) film resembling "At Middleton" before now.

Anyway, if you've really got a spare 90 minutes or so, this film has a few better and more meaningful moments that it might be worth keeping faith for...

Excellent movie until the dope smoking scene, and then it got silly and then fell apart. Still worth watching.

They may not be Daniel Day-Lewis and Cate Blanchett, but Andy Garcia and Vera Farmiga are solid actors, and usually make solid film choices. That is part of the reason why At Middleton is such a surprise. The film is shockingly bad. Vera Farmiga's character is extremely unlikeable, while most of the rest of the characters (including the "dingleberry" tour guide) just don't behave, respond and react in in a way that is realistic. The portrayal of college students is especially bad...it's neither negative or positive, it's just not correct. I knew after 15 minutes that this film was terrible, but hoped it would get better. It didn't. After seeing on IMDb that this won some minor film festival awards, all I can say is that beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder.

I was so looking forward to watching this after reading the reviews on Amazon Prime. From the outset I had to tap my reserve of disbelief suspensions. There were so many plot contrivances, Stranger Things seemed more believable. So, George is going to confront a stranger in a parking lot even though he hadn't even begun backing his car into the parking spot? Their exchange that ensued was ridiculous but really set the tone for the next 90 minutes of one cliche after another. Two attractive parents who just start to connect from there and need each other. Edith is just so hip and irresistible. The two steal bikes and crash a theater class which of course they participate in and blow the instructor away. Edith of course brings all this out of George by saying and doing things that are not only unbelievable but also annoying and immature. The two kids act like they are so oppressed and wise beyond their years with their first world problems. I'm I supposed to empathize with them? The girl is particularly dramatic with her histrionics that we are no doubt supposed to love her for. "I only act like this around people I like." Both kids talk to their parents with disrespect. Edith and her daughter treat other people with contempt, like defiant children. How noble of George to stand up to the one guy who mouthed off to Edith during a separate tour (are we supposed to clap?). Then others kept correcting George when he said "planetarium" instead of "observatory" as if it is material. Unlike other reviewers, I turned it off with about a half hour left since I no longer cared. The campus was beautiful but the characters were shallow and need to grow up.