Review: 'iMordecai' is a family story with its heart in the right place, but so much else going wrong
The story of “iMordecai” is based, loosely, on the family of its first-time director, Marvin Samel — and there’s enough authentic charm here that one wishes the rookie filmmaker had handed the project off to someone who could dodge the sentimental pitfalls that he plunges into head first.
This comedy-drama centers on Mordecai Samel, a retired plumber pushing 80 in a Miami apartment complex with his wife, Fela (Carol Kane — making for the “Taxi” reunion you never knew you wanted). Mordecai thinks he can still fix things like he used to, which is why his exasperated son Marvin (Sean Astin) finds him taking a jackhammer to his bathroom, to give Fela a walk-in shower.
Marvin also notices Mordecai’s ancient flip phone, held together with electrical tape, and decides it’s time for his dad to enter the iPhone age. Turns out that having a phone without buttons is liberating — once Mordecai gets some lessons from one of the “Einsteins” at the store (no mention of “Genius Bar” in this unlicensed movie), Nina (Azia Dinea Hale). Mordecai and Nina become fast friends, sharing a love of painting, and their cross-generational friendship opens up Mordecai to art and other pursuits.
Mordecai’s new life is not without its complications. Fela is starting to experience dementia, and Mordecai needs to watch over her more closely than before — particularly when Fela hears Mordecai on the phone with another woman, not realizing it’s Siri on his new phone.
Mordecai starts painting again, inspired by his childhood in Poland, escaping in 1939 before the Nazis invaded. Not everyone in his family was so lucky, he tells Nina, noting that some of his aunts died in the Treblinka concentration camp. Nina — who volunteers at the Jewish Center where Mordecai sometimes visits — doesn’t tell him that she learned that her recently deceased grandfather was an SS guard at Treblinka.
Samel and the script — written by Rudy Gaines, who shares story credit with Samel and Dahlia Heyman — lumbers through the connect-the-dots plot, and spends way too much time on Marvin’s troubles trying to sell a cigar factory he invested in using money borrowed from his dad. More interesting are the animated sequences that depict Mordecai’s memories of Poland and the antisemitism that prompted his family to escape to America.
The best parts of “iMordecai” are Hirsch and Kane, both committing to their sometimes overwritten characters and embodying the movie’s message — that you’re never too old to live a full life — better than the script and direction do.
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‘iMordecai’
★★1/2
Opens Friday, March 3, at the Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy), Megaplex at The District (South Jordan). Megaplex at Legacy Crossing (Centerville) and Megaplex at Thanksgiving Point (Lehi). Not rated, but probably PG-13 for some language, drug use, cigar smoking, and discussions of the Holocaust. Running time: 102 minutes.