Rumormongering

A Rumor Has It is a failure of a movie. The premise is that the classic The Graduate is actually based on our heroine's (Jennifer Anniston's) family. Hijinks and lack of hilarity ensue as she goes back home for her sister's wedding and confronts this myth, personified via her grandmother (Shirly MacLaine) and possible father (Kevin Costner).

In fact, the myth is not true - well, it is true that their tryst was the basis for The Graduate, but not in that way, not with those motivations, not with that ending. Note the structural flaw: the big revelation is that our heroine's life is not based (to any meaningful degree) on The Graduate. This is less than dramatic news. In addition to the bland characters and wasted energies, director Rob Reiner feels the need to inject labored politics into the proceedings. You see, Anniston never felt like she was a part of her family's white-bread Pasadena conservative existence (insert standard caricatures of Orange County, CA). Instead, she's much more inclined to be swept off her feet by the charismatic liberal billionaire Costner. And just to make sure you get it, let's see Costner speechify about the "scientist" Che Geuvera and lovingly pass over photos of Castro on his bookshelf, as if to say who wouldn't want to be seduced by this romantic ideologue?! All of which might be forgiven if the film were funny. Except for far too few scenes of a tipsy Maclaine, it's not.