Prime

Plot synopsis:
New York City. Rafi Gardet (Uma Thurman) comes to see her therapist, Lisa Metzger (Meryl Streep), and tells her she has signed her divorce papers. She is distressed because she has suddenly started to think she wants to have children. Lisa tells her she should try to live in the now, for now.Dave Bloomberg (Bryan Greenberg) is at home when his friend Morris calls. Dave joins Morris (Jon Abrahams) as he goes to see a girl he who has dumped him after their first date. Morris smears a cream pie in her face, which seems to be his usual approach to this situation. This time, though, the girl calls her brothers out from the house, and Dave and Morris do a quick escape in their car.Dave goes to see a movie with a girl. In front of the theatre he meets an acquiantance, Randall (Zak Orth), who introduces him to his friends Katherine (Annie Parisse) and Rafi. When Dave goes to the bathroom he finds himself locked out of the theatre, along with Rafi; they exhange looks. After the movie they all go out, and Dave and his date argue over whether or not they are dating. Later, Dave is in his bedroom with the phone. He calls Rafi, but hangs up. He calls again and finds the nerve to ask her out. There's noise in the background; he tells her it's his roommates, but it's actually his grandparents (Jerry Adler and Doris Belack), who he lives with.Dave picks Rafi up at her apartment building; he finds the doorman (Ato Essandoh) somewhat uncommunicative. At the restaurant he talks about the quirks of his Jewish family. They buy beer at an all-night store, and Dave has to show ID. Rafi asks Dave how old he is; he circles the subject, but they establish that she is 37 and he is 23. That's a bigger age difference than Rafi thought, but Dave convinces her to continue the date, and he takes her to a secret garden hidden behind a gate.Rafi is back with her therapist. We flash back to the garden, where Rafi and Dave chat and kiss. Rafi tells Lisa about the age difference - though she lies and says Dave is 27 - and she isn't sure she should be getting into a relationship, but Lisa says it's a good thing. Later Dave talks to his mother on the phone; she is worried that he is dating a girl who isn't Jewish.Rafi talks to her friend Katherine about Dave. Dave goes to his family home, and we discover that his mother is Rafi's therapist. After dinner they have argue; Lisa believes faith to be central in a person's life and thinks it causes too many problems to marry outside your faith. Dave says she sounds like an after-school special. He also tells her that the woman he is dating is older than him; he says 27.Dave visits Rafi at her apartment; he unsuccessfully tries to make the doorman laugh. They talk about art, listen to jazz and kiss. Dave and Morris go to a bakery to get Morris another cream pie, and Dave tells Morris about his feelings for Rafi. Dave's parents talk about how they can get Dave to date Jewish girls. Dave and Rafi go out again and end up sleeping together.Rafi goes to see Lisa again and talks excitedly about Dave. She blurts out his real age and admits that she was and is embarrassed by the age difference. She also says he is an artist, though he is not very confident about it and his family is unsupportive; we see a flashback of her and Dave talking about this. Lisa looks startled and asks where he lives. She realizes that they are talking about her son and breaks off their session. Soon she's on the couch of another therapist (Madhur Jaffrey), asking for advice on what to do. She decides to stay on as Rafi's therapist, not revealing anything.Dave takes Rafi out again, and they have a candlelight dinner next to a big painting by Rafi's favourite artist. Another day she comes to see him play basketball and takes him home to bed. Back at Lisa's office, Rafi talks about how much sex she and Dave have, how happy she is and how beautiful his penis is. They also touch on personal hygiene, and Rafi explains how Dave never used Q-tips before he met her, complete with a flashback. But Rafi also talks about her doubts about whether she and Dave can have a serious relationship. In another scene, Dave tells Rafi how his mother and family do not accept that Dave is dating a non-Jew. He remembers how he introduced a former girlfriend, who was black, to his grandmother, and how she reacted by wacking herself on the head with a frying pan.On the same day, Dave loses his job and has to find a new place to stay because his grandparents are swapping apartments with relatives. He goes to see Rafi at work, at a fashion shoot, and offends her employer. But he is soon forgiven, and at night they go dancing. Rafi insists they go to Dave's place after; she finds out he lives with his grandparents and laughs. She sees his paintings for the first time and tells him he should paint for a living.Dave drops off some stuff at his parents' place, saying he is staying with Morris for a while. When Rafi arrives for her appointment with Lisa at the office next door, Lisa narrowly keeps the two from meeting. Rafi tells her that Dave is moving in with her. That weekend the couple go to the Hamptons to visit Rafi's friends, a gay couple (David Costabile and Will McCormack), along with Randall, also gay, and Katherine. The group discuss politics and arts, but Dave feels excluded and feels like he's being tested. Randall expresses concern that Dave at his age might not be able to give her what she needs, especially when it comes to children.Dave and Rafi go to a gallery opening. She lets her contacts know about his art, but she doesn't introduce him to some of her friends. Dave still doesn't have a job and just hangs around Rafi's apartment all day. One day Lisa goes into a furniture store with her husband, and they have to hide when she sees Dave and Rafi there. In their next consultation, Rafi tells Lisa about her problems with Dave, but Lisa interrupts her. She tells Rafi the truth. Rafi is shocked and angry. She tells Dave, and Dave argues with his mother on the phone.Dave brings Morris to Rafi's apartment one day, but hides him in a closet when Rafi comes home early because she doesn't like other people in the apartment. She finds out and blames Dave for acting like a child. They fight. Later at a restaurant Rafi breaks up with Dave.One of Rafi's art connections comes to see Dave's pictures. He buys two and wants to set up a show. Dave also gets his own apartment. He is still down about Rafi, but Morris takes him out, and Dave ends up bringing a girl home with him - a model he previously met at Rafi's photo shoot (Mini Anden). But soon after he and Rafi meet in a grocery store and rush back to his place to have sex. They rekindle their relationship, and Dave talks his mother into having them over for dinner with the whole family. Rafi and Lisa make friends again, and the family seem to relax about the idea of Rafi and Dave together, and of Dave being a painter. Rafi mentions the possibility of having children with Dave.Rafi learns of Dave's night with the model. Heartbroken, she confronts him. Dave talks to his mother, who tells him she understands his love for Rafi, but that sometimes good things come to an end. One night Dave goes to see Rafi, who comes home at the same moment. The doorman makes sure they meet in the elevator. Dave apologizes. Next we see them in bed together. Dave says he wants to make a baby with her. Rafi says she can't let that happen.One year later, winter. Dave and Morris are walking down a street. Dave is talking about leaving and seeing the world. He realizes he forgot his hat in a restaurant, and he goes back for it. At the restaurant he sees Rafi and her friends at a table. He turns away and goes outside, but then he wipes a circle in the frost-clad window. Rafi sees him, they look at each other, she smiles. We see flashbacks of their relationship. Then Dave raises his hand as goodbye and walks away in the snow.

Tags: entertaining, flashback

Review:
Everything about that scene bespoke an upper-middle-class 20-something living with his grandparents and lacking direction.Not to mention that the intimacy between Rafi and David felt so natural that I felt convinced that Uma and Bryan had something off-screen during filming.
No monologues that sound like they were cribbed from 'Chicken Soup for the Soul', just real people reacting to each other and their circumstances.Meryl Streep is great in this (and this is coming from a straight, twenty-something male) and Uma Thurman and Brian Greenberg have a real chemistry together.
Midway through "Prime," there's a scene in which Uma Thurman's character, Rafi, comes to her boyfriend's (Bryan Greenberg) house for dinner with his family.
His mom, played by Meryl Streep, as usual giving a performance better than the movie it's in, has up until very recently been Rafi's therapist.
The therapist loves Rafi and thinks she's a wonderful person, but she also knows much about her that prospective mothers-in-law don't necessarily know about their sons' girlfriends, things that compound the problems raised by Rafi's not only being 14 years older than the son, but also decidedly NOT Jewish.I wish more of "Prime" had been about this relationship, the one between Thurman and Streep.
I was too distracted by the fact that he had a wonderful actress like Streep in his film and didn't seem to know what to do with her."Prime" is far from a bad film, and given its indifferent reception when it was released in theatres, I actually expected it to be worse than it was.
You don't watch this movie to feel good about the romantic endeavors that litter your brain but are almost never real, nor do you watch it to laugh at what is going on.I especially liked the fact that Uma Thruman didn't play the role of the stupid blonde that she got in some of her latest movies and also that the movie tried to capture reality more than fantastic situations that no one can relate to and that always end in happy ending.Mix Jewishness, visits to the psychologist, divorcées in the fashion business having gay friends and dating younger guys and you get ...
Uma Thurman plays well, Merryl Streep is always a good actress, but in this movie manages not the be annoying as well, which I think is a step up for her.
Meryl Streep does a good enough job (but she's not at her best and why are her eyes always reddish?) as Rafi's therapist and David's opinionated mother.
The characters are realistic, each reacting to the other in believable ways, but it ends up with mostly hilarious outcomes.No spoilers here, but the rough idea is that an older, just-divorced woman (Uma Thurman) gets romantically involved with a much younger man (Bryan Greenberg).
All the leads (Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman, Bryan Greenberg) were wonderful, as were the supporting roles.
No, she is much stronger now, and with the help of Lisa, her therapist, she will know better how to deal with anyone that might try to play with her feelings.Enter David, the young hunk of a guy, who likes what he sees when he meets Rafi, casually, one night while waiting to go in to see a film at Cinema Village.
It features a new permutation on the old mistaken-identity plot: 37-year-old divorcée Rafi (Uma Thurman) starts dating carefree 23-year-old David (Bryan Greenberg), neither of them realizing that he is the son of her therapist Lisa (Meryl Streep).
This smartly written comedy-drama stars the divine Meryl Streep as Dr. Lisa Metzger, a Jewish psychiatrist who one day must deal with the fact that one of her patients (Uma Thurman), a 37- year old divorcée, is dating her 23 year old son.
Uma Thurman turns in what I believe is the best performance of her career, a full-bodied performance as an independent career woman on the outside whose interior struggles keep her a mess and hunky Bryan Greenburg shows definite leading man potential as son and lover David.
I don't know enough about the production end to know, but I see two-three movies a week at this theater, and I've never noticed it before - this time it was so distracting I couldn't pay enough attention to the story, which I thought for this day and age a little weak.
We both decided to see PRIME partly because we both like Meryl Streep and also, because we heard that the movie was supposed to be funny.
Well, we both liked it and not only that, but just about everyone in the theater seemed to feel the same way.As for the story, Uma Thurman plays a newly divorced 37 year old named Rafi who meets up with a 24 year old kid named Dave played by Bryan Greenburg.
However, what IS significant is that all this time, Rafi is seeing a therapist named Lisa Metzger (Meryl Streep) who turns out to be the mother of Dave, Rafi's love interest.
In conclusion, I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys comedy and loves Meryl Streep as she was good in this movie as was Uma Thurman..
I was hesitant about this film at first, because I have not liked so many films starring Uma Thurman, but I must say she did an excellent job portraying the "older woman," and Bryan Greenberg was perfect as her hunky younger boyfriend, but Meryl Streep was superlative playing a role that could have become a combination of the stereotypes of therapist and Jewish mother in other hands.So many scenes were funny and evoked other strong emotions at the same time.
In New York, after a troubled process of divorce, the thirty-seven years old Raphael "Rafi" Gardet (Uma Thurman) meets the twenty-three years old Jew David Bloomberg (Bryan Greenberg) in a session of "Blow-up" and they start seeing each other.
If the story was about a protestant family and the "jabs" had been about those of the Jewish faith they would be termed anti-semitic.I rented this movie because of the cast, but Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman showed their age and probably gave one of their worst, if not the worst performances, of their career.
I think we can expect great things from this very gifted young man.Also, I think film made it fairly clear that David could have maintained some kind of a relationship with Rafi, by the way she held his gaze in the final scene.
to cast someone as bad of an actor as Bryan Greenberg opposite Uma Thurman, not alone in the same film as Meryl Streep is unbelievable.
PRIME brings the gorgeous Uma Thurman back onto the screen in a delightful role played against the comedic talents of the formidable Meryl Streep in a very entertaining film with wonderful shots of New York.
And watch out, Bryan Greenberg is gonna be big, as his role of the son on his own journey to find himself is a great introduction to a young man that will go places.With that said, "enough already" with the Jewish angst and the typical Jewish Mother via Meryl Streep who can't see what she is doing to her son by not letting him go about his own life.
The last scene will always play in my mind when Bryan wipes the frost away from the window of the restaurant, to reveal the beauty and translucence of Uma's face filled with joy, love, and the sense of knowing she did the right thing for Bryan.PRIME has its moments, some over done, but when you see the beauty of Uma Thurman and the handsome, intelligent face of Bryan Greenberg, you know all is well with Ben Younger and his vision for his film..
This is a solid little work by writer/director Ben Younger who has created a story, somewhat autobiographical, and engaged the interest and devotion of some very fine actors to bring off this simple but very honest view of love and its permutations.Rafi (Uma Thurman) is a recently divorced, successful fashion worker (she sets up camera shoots for high fashion photographers) who is in therapy with the sensitive and understanding therapist Liza Metzger (Meryl Streep) who supports Rafi's need for love and encourages her to put her bad marriage behind her and find someone who will appreciate her.
The manner in which this problematic triad is worked through, and it is a bumpy ride, is the story of the film.The atmosphere of this on the surface illogical story is so well realized - the Jewish family scenes are very funny, the warmth of the relationship between Rafi and David say a lot about love despite hurdles, the inner struggle Lisa faces with her own therapist - that the movie is a natural joy to watch.
Meryl Streep gives a fine turn as Lisa, and Uma Thurman and newcomer Bryan Greenberg deliver a wholly credible couple with a fine screen chemistry.
Rafi (Thurman) just got divorced and starts seeing a younger man (Greenberg), whose mother (Streep) is her Therapist.
And like all the others before we get all the same scenes and characters.There's the basketball, food, dance, and love scenes; The nosey over protective mother who has nothing better to do than get over involved in her son's sex life and is oblivious of the fact that her child is a grown man; The crazy friends who constantly bug you for a play-by-play; The spoiled slut with the cat and big apartment; The romantic leading man who likes both sports AND art (yeah right); And blah blah blah, more of the same.Oh and lets talk about Mural Strip and how terrible she was in this movie.
Still, Greenberg Penelope Cruz's this role (meaning, like Cruz in Vanilly Sky, he's got some pretty good dialogue and he botches all of it).Streep plays a Jewish psychiatrist & worrywart mother to stereotypical Method competence.
Well, I do know which one I would vote for; still, I can't help but think how wasted the talents of Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman are in the absolutely dulling 'Prime'.
Often hilarious and poignant comedy regarding a therapist who has a patient, newly divorced, who is now seeing the therapist's 23 year old son.Meryl Streep is in terrific form as the hysterical Jewish therapist who knows how to give advice to others, but can't take what's going on.Of course, there are ethical issues here.
In other words, as you walk out of the theatre, you don't really care about Rafi and Dave just like the way you don't really care about two card-board cut outs.Younger seems to focus too much on the topics that come to people easily when thinking about relationships with such a great age difference, such as one person who wants a baby while the other person wants the newest X-Box game, etc..
Despite the film having its fair share of funny moments and tasteful humor, Younger definitely could have explored this relationship on a deeper level and gave Thurman and Greenberg a little more to work with in terms of character development and dialogue.
I wonder if she's utilized the services of a few in her day?!Uma Thurman does an equally great job playing one of the most endearing roles of her career.The screenplay is excellent at times, but the plot does get a bit drawn out toward the end of the movie.
The cast was good, Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep both acted well as usual...
I was looking forward to Prime thinking it would be another brilliant Uma Thurman movie but it turned out to fail as a romantic comedy.
Very few romantic comedies are successful at the moment, so I'm not usually surprised when I watch one that isn't that funny, but Uma Thurman and Merryl Streep would of been able to deliver something hilarious.I am a devoted Uma Thurman fan, I think she was brilliant in both Kill Bills and great in My Super Ex Girlfriend, but this movie is, in my opinion, only just worth watching as a comedy.
The terrific cast includes relative newcomer Bryan Greenberg who pulls off the young, sensitive artist-in-love with an older woman pretty well; Uma Thurman (sans Samurai sword); and living legend Meryl Streep as the mother / therapist.
That she didn't, well, she'll suffer the consequences because no director in his right mind will think once about casting her in the lead role of a romantic-comedy after her dopy, lackluster performance in this dreadful flick.Romance-wise "Prime" tells the vapid story of the very unlikely relationship between the beautiful successful fashion photographer Rafi Garnet, a 37-year-old, childless, recent divorcée, and, scruffy puppy David Bloomberg (Bryan Greenberg), a 23-year-old, not-yet-successful artist.
As such, the scene fails, falling to the floor like a dropped board.)The basis for the comedy in "Prime" was supposed to emanate from the fact that Rafi's psychoanalyst, Dr. Lisa Metzger (Meryl Streep playing a be-speckled, giant beaded necklace-wearing Jewish grandmother-to-be stereotype), is also David's mother.
(The only gag Younger did not employ was the time-worn "spit take.") We also get a hearty dose of Rafi expressing the most intimate details of her sexual relationship with David, inclusive of her avowed fascination with David's penis, to his petrified mother.In response, Dr. Metzger, in an aside to her own therapist, utters one of the few truly funny lines in the movie, "Up until last week I didn't even think my son had a penis!" Along those lines, up until yesterday I thought "Prime" was going to be a funny romantic-comedy and a wise choice as a "date movie." Had I Ms. Bullock's intuition I would have thought better..
2.) I've always been a Meryl Streep fan and can watch her in just about anything (and when she was in her "prime" I used to think she was attractive in a classical, offbeat kind of way).Well, this film overstays its welcome pretty quickly with a meandering storyline of a newly divorced woman (Thurman) falling in lust (and maybe a little bit of love) for a younger guy.
The film's arc from her low self-esteem as a divorcée, to blooming infatuated lover to mature woman understanding what she wants and needs from love at her age is so refreshing that it lifts this film from the easily categorized ranks of chick flicks, even if the concluding coda feels a bit tacked on and doesn't 100% work without more information on the results of her character's choices.While Younger makes the therapy sessions more like girl talk, and his brief stabs at girl and gay talk conversations don't feel quite right, it's "Lisa"s analyst who keeps more accurately asking "But how does that make you feel?" rather than her own more maternal advise to her patients, let alone her son.
For example, when the lead guy meets Uma Thurman for the first time on line at a movie theater the moment is so forced and over acted that I thought that they already knew each other and were in on a joke!!
Prime starring Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg is not exactly your typical romantic Hollywood movie.
That really was the only part of the whole movie where I laughed and thought what was happening was funny, which is good because the rest of the film is supposed to be dramatic, and the drama works very well.
"Prime" from 2005 is a sweet film starring Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman, and Bryan Greenberg.
Uneven Rom-Com. My biggest problem with Prime is that it is not a consistent movie but rather felt like 2 separate movies - a cute romantic comedy taking over the first half and a dull romantic drama taking over the second half.I quite enjoyed the first half of the movie; it was light hearted and cute and the whole dynamic with Meryl Streep (Lisa) being Uma Thurman (Rafi)'s psychiatrist but also Bryan Greenberg (David)'s mother was very enjoyable to watch.
Fortunately writer/director Ben Younger finds the perfect note for his romantic comedy/drama, "Prime." Rafi Gardet (Uma Thurman) is just getting over a divorce and is seeing a therapist, Lisa Metzger (Meryl Streep).
She knows that even though she may get top billing, Lisa plays second fiddle to Rafi and David, and she leaves it to Thurman and Greenberg to command our attention (which they do perfectly).Ben Younger's script is brilliant in the way it portrays the ins and outs of love.
This movie is totally inappropriate for children or teen-agers.That said, it is an interesting film with two excellent actresses: Meryl Streep, of course, and Uma Thurman in one of her more complex roles as a conflicted 37-year-old divorcée engaged in an intense affair with 23-year old David (played by Bryan Greenberg).
Each of those issues is dealt with in a way that I found humorous and thought provoking.The trailers give away the movie's main plot twist: the recently-divorced main protagonist (Uma Thurman) undertakes a fling with a much younger man, who turns out to be her therapist's (Meryl Streep's) son.
I'd like to say that this was a GREAT film.I'd like to say that Uma was amazing in her portrayal.I'd like to say that Bryan really convinced me.I'd also like to say that Meryl made me really think she was a Jewish overprotective mother.I'm afraid that I can't really say any of these things without lying to you or myself.I'd also be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the movie, so rest assured if you're starting to get fired up.This was a very cute, quite funny and bubbly lesson in life about interaction, sex and relationships.
PRIME (2005) * Uma Thurman, Meryl Streep, Bryan Greenberg, Jon Abrahams.
Did I mention I'm Jewish?) person again in a film counsels the older, newly broken-up fashion svengali Rafi Gardet (Uma Thurman) who is, to Streep's ignorance, in a relationship with her son David Bloomberg (Bryan Greenberg).
It does however get better in the second hour.It is worth watching Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman in the same movie.
I love Meryl Streep and I like Uman Thurman in Kill Bill and Bryan Greenberg is pretty hot.