Director: Billy Crystal
Starring: Billy Crystal, Tiffany Haddish, Penn Badgley, Matthew Broussard, Andrew Durand, Laura Benanti and Audrey Hsieh
Distributor: Sony Pictures
Runtime: 117 mins. Reviewed in Apr 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Coarse language

Veteran comedy writer, Charles Burnz, is suffering from incipient dementia. He does not tell his family who are distant from him. By chance he meets a street singer, Emma Payge. They become friends and she will care for him as his memory deteriorates.

As soon as we register the title, we realise its implications: gone tomorrow.

In recent times there have been a number of films about dementia – Queen Bees from the US, Ruby’s Choice from Australia. Both focused on older women and the issue of going into care.

Audiences have always liked Billy Crystal, welcoming him on both the big and television screens. He has a great sense of humour, comic timing, and communicates a genial affability (earning six Emmys among many other awards). This is much his film – an adaptation of a short story, The Prize, by Alan Zweibel. Billy Crystal was 72 while he made this film, playing an older man who realises his oncoming dementia.

He is Charlie Burnz, a prolific comedy writer (and an entertaining cameo sequence acclaiming him with guest stars, director Barry Levinson, Sharon Stone and Kevin Kline). He keeps going to work, is admired by his colleagues, has an eye and ear for successful jokes and their staging for television. He plays tennis with his architect son. Has fallen out with his daughter but her daughter is devoted to him, wanting him to come to her Bat Mitzvah.

From the outset, as Charlie walks to work, checking stop signs and lights and knowing he needs to turn left to get to the office, we realise that he is having memory lapses. Sometimes he can’t remember people’s names. And at home, he has the names of his family under their photos. He goes to a strong and sympathetic doctor played by Anna Deveare Smith.

But, the unexpected aspect of the story is that he goes to a lunch with someone who has made a bid for this lunch at a celebrity auction. It is not the winner of the ticket but his former girlfriend, Emma played by Tiffany Haddish.

And, so, we have a meeting of the older generation of comics and the new generation, a meeting between Jewish and African-American humour (and music and culture). As might be expected from those who have seen Tiffany Haddish’s films and television, she comes on heavily (perhaps an understatement). But, at the lunch she suffers from an allergy, Charlie having to take her to hospital, pay her bills which she insists she repay. Which means then that she turns up sometimes unexpectedly to pay her debts. She sings with a band, especially in the subway stations but is offered a bus tour around America.

What follows is a wonderful friendship, step-by-step, understandings and misunderstandings, Charlie appreciating Emma – and the important dramatic aspect that Tiffany Haddish gradually tones down her dominating presence, becoming a strong, supporting and understanding friend. Although, she does take over the Bat Mitzvah, singing exuberantly but able then to gather all the guests around her, joyfully singing and dancing.

We learn about Charlie’s background, a great number of pleasing flashbacks, emotional, to his meeting his wife Carrie, their courtship, her giving birth at a museum near the dinosaurs (with them naming their son, Rex!), the bonding over the years, her sad death.

We see Charlie mentoring an ambitious young writer who is hesitant. We see Charlie bonding with his granddaughter. We see him having a personal conversations with Emma, her encouraging him to write about his life and his family. And she goes with him to visit the doctor and understand his prospects.

There is some drama, especially the fears of his children – but, a fine scene where Emma is able to communicate to them what is happening.

Some bloggers have complained that this is too sentimental. One wonders whether they want Charlie to die alone and abandoned for their dramatic satisfaction. But, no, the screenplay offers a possibility of understanding reconciliation, forgiveness, bonding and love, and the support of true friendship. Who can complain about this?Thanks to Billy Crystal for bringing this to the screen.