St. Vincent (2014)

It's one of the most Joseph Campbellian of all stories, the young man and his mentor, and that's why we keep coming back to it, it's iconic, it's mythic, it's true. In this case the story is of the extremely polite but social awkward son of a recently divorced mother and his crotchety neighbor turned babysitter. You get more of a performance then your used to out of Bill Murray in this, he's not just playing a version of himself like usual, Vincent is more evolved, an actual character. In fact that is the thing I loved most about this movie, the characters, and how they interact with each other. I loved Murray and Jaeden Lieberher together, I loved Naomi Watts Russian prostitute, Chris O'Dowd's ironist priest, and Melissa McCarthy's decent, hard working, conflicted mother. I haven't enjoyed a comedy on a character level so much since maybe She's Out of My League. A treasure this one is. ***1/2