Did You Hear About the Morgans?

Directed by Marc Lawrence, Did You Hear About the Morgans? follows separated couple Paul (Hugh Grant) and Meryl (Sarah Jessica Parker) as they’re forced to hide out in Wyoming after witnessing a murder. It’s a decidedly familiar premise that’s employed to mostly watchable yet entirely forgettable effect by Lawrence, as the filmmaker, working from his own script, delivers a meandering and thoroughly conventional romcom that relies mostly on the charm of its stars to keep it afloat – with Grant and Parker’s predictably compelling work here matched by an agreeably eclectic periphery cast that includes Sam Elliott, Mary Steenburgen, Elizabeth Moss, and Wilford Brimley. (The latter, cast as a grumpy local, certainly makes the most of his few minutes of screen time, for example.) The movie’s midsection, which seems to consist primarily of rote, been-there-done-that-type bits of fish-out-of-water silliness, does little to elevate the proceedings, ultimately, and it’s apparent, ultimately, that the paint-by-numbers bent of Lawrence’s script prevents any aspect of the picture, including the predictably upbeat finale, from packing the engaging punch the filmmaker has obviously intended – with the end result a just-decent-enough piece of work that generally feels like it should’ve been much, much better.

**1/2 out of ****