If we were going to be curmudgeonly about it—and “St. Vincent” is, after all, a movie about a curmudgeon—we'd focus on the one major flaw in the film, and not on its pleasures.
But since those pleasures are so, well, pleasurable, we‘ll do what Vincent—he’s the curmudgeon, brought wonderfully to life by the singular Bill Murray—would never do. We’ll focus on the positive.
Which is considerable. Who wouldn’t want to spend 103 minutes in the company of Murray at his grumpy best—his eyes in a perpetual roll, annoyed by anyone and everything, but somehow earning affection from those who annoy him? Not that anyone can figure out why. As Daka the pregnant stripper/prostitute, played by Naomi Watts with a go-for-broke Russian accent, asks Vincent’s young friend Oliver: “WHY you like him?”
First-time director-screenwriter Theodore Melfi, who snagged Murray by first calling the actor’s 1-800 number and leaving a voice mail, doesn’t give us a lot of backstory about Vincent. But by the end of the opening credits, we know pretty much what we need to. Vincent’s a mess.
Retired and residing alone in a ramshackle house in Brooklyn, he indulges in booze and gambling—and pregnant stripper/prostitute Daka. At the bank, he learns his reverse mortgage has run out. He tries to empty his account, but discovers he’s overdrawn by $114.
