Phil movie review & film summary (2019)

Some edge comes from a kooky script by Stephen Mazur, which includes contrasting tones that circle around a sentimental, playful performance from Kinnear. That playful air starts with him as a depressed, divorced, suicidal dentist named Phil, who decides to not jump off a bridge in the first scene after hearing the song “I Beg Your Pardon, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” So though he doesn’t kill himself, he instead becomes fixated on people who seem to have their gardens, and finds that within a patient named Michael Fisk (Bradley Whitford). Michael is successful and happy: he's written a well-received book about Socrates, and has a loving wife and daughter. Phil finds this out by stalking Michael and his family, in a sequence that is absurd and kind of goofy, and it careens with the first big twist of the story—Michael hangs himself in the woods. Phil is devastated, and more so confused: Why would the man who has it all throw it all away? 

Phil’s fixation on finding an answer leads him to pretending to be a Greek man that Michael mentioned in passing—a larger-than-life, long-lost friend named Spiros (broken English and all). Michael’s widow Alicia (Emily Mortimer) welcomes Phil into her home, where “Spiros” offers to help with a bathroom remodeling, so that he can stay in the Fisks’ life, but secretly have access to Michael’s office. Phil treats it as a vacation from himself—letting the calls pile up at his dentist office, and avoiding examination of his own unhappiness. While interacting with those in Michael's life, Phil ends up having to be a support for others, and stumbles onto life lessons along the way. 

Call it feel-good, call it mawkish, "Phil" has a striking approach to its Capra-esque story, while attempting to twist things up with possible explanations as to why Michael committed suicide. But Kinnear extinguishes the fleeting magic from Mazur's script with an indifferent visual approach, setting many soft-lit conversations in generic locations (a diner, a coffee shop, a front porch), creating a monotony for grounded interactions that should feel like epiphanies. Kinnear does not make directing look easy, so much as lazy. 

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