Review: 'She Came to Me' has stars Peter Dinklage, Marisa Tomei and Anne Hathaway, and the plot of a screwball comedy, but with a weirdly muted tone

If you played a screwball comedy like the most serious drama, you’d get something much like what writer-director Rebecca Miller concocts in “She Came to Me,” a frenetically plotted but morosely staged look at love, opera and obsessions.

Opera composer Steven Lauddem (Peter Dinklage) is in a rut, creatively and in his marriage to Patricia Jessup-Lauddem (Anne Hathaway), his wife and former therapist. Steven is trying to write his newest opera, but can’t come up with an idea. When he asks Patricia to consider deviating from their normal routine of only having sex on Thursdays, she declines. Patricia is busy with her patients, cleaning their already spotless apartment, and worrying about her 18-year-old son, Julian (Evan A. Ellison). 

One day, Patricia pushes Steven out of their Brooklyn home to walk the dog. He walks into a dockside bar, where he meets Katrina (Marisa Tomei), a tugboat captain. He accepts her invitation to check out her boat, where she tells of being addicted to romance — and promptly seduces Steven. Not long after, Steven has a brainstorm, to adapt Katrina’s story, with some murderous adjustments, into his next opera.

Meanwhile, the movie also introduces us to Tereza Szyskowski (Harlow Jane), the 16-year-old daughter of Magdalena (Joanna Kulig) and step-daughter to Magdalena’s hyper-controlling boyfriend, Trey Ruffa (Brian D’Arcy James), a court reporter and Civil War reenactor. How do these characters connect to Steven and Patricia? Tereza and Julian are in love, and Magdalena has just gotten a job as Patricia’s maid.

Miller’s characters are driven by their obsessions — Steven’s for his music, Katrina’s for stalking men she falls for, Patricia for the spartan existence of Catholic nuns, and Trey’s for justice and the knowledge that his underage stepdaughter is having sex with an 18-year-old boy. Bringing all of these together into one story has the potential to be explosive and funny, though Miller’s approach is more deadpan quirky than riotously funny.

Miller — who has made such heavy Sundance dramas as “Personal Velocity” and “The Ballad of Jack and Rose”— is capable of comedy. Her last movie, “Maggie’s Plan,” was a warmly witty romance, bolstered by the smartly funny central performance of Greta Gerwig.

Here, Miller gets some unexpected laughs from staging Steven’s offbeat operas, with music by composer Bryce Dessner, known for his work with The National (and for co-writing the songs for the Dinklage vehicle “Cyrano”). Otherwise, the performances, particularly  Dinklage’s and Tomei’s, are muted, like they’re afraid of leaning into the absurdity of the scenario. (Hathaway, surprisingly, does find the silliness in this straitlaced comedy of manners.) If “She Came to Me” was just a hair less clever, and a bit more manic, it might be a great modern romantic comedy, instead of a curious oddity.

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‘She Came to Me’

★★★

Opens Friday, October 6, at several theaters. Rated R for some language. Running time: 102 minutes.