One scene in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry hints at what could have been true about director Hans Canosa’s film, and it does not even involve the eponymous character. Indeed, it does not even really involve any of the principal characters in Gabrielle Zevin’s screenplay (adapted from her novel). It regards a woman played by Lauren Stamile – a role that, in order to preserve a certain surprise for courtesy’s sake, will not be revealed here in its entirety. Let us only say that she appears at the end of a book reading that means a lot for the career of the protagonist’s love interest Amy (Lucy Hale), a publisher’s representative and book lover who put in a lot of work to get this reading to happen.
Stamile’s presence is something of a twist, but the screen time shared between the actress and Hale is notable in the way it actually speaks to ideas about storytelling and the ownership that comes as a result of authorship. It is, in every conceivable way, superior to the movie that surrounds it. For a few short minutes, Canosa allows his characters to truly speak between the lines, concealing and revealing their thoughts and ambitions to each other as they see fit for the purpose of this interaction. For the other 100 or so minutes, we are treated to a tonally discombobulated mess of a wasted opportunity, which has no idea if it wants to be a sparkly romantic comedy or a pointed study of a cynical man or an examination of how the people around him evolve because of their relationship with him. It splits the difference by doing none of these things very well.
The man in question, obviously, is A.J. Fikry (Kunal Nayyar), a bookseller who seems to be on his last legs of his job manning a bookstore. Our initial impression of A.J. is not a positive or promising one. When he initially meets Amy, he lays out every literary trend he hates, as well as a few classic novels he dislikes (and never you worry – we’ll learn about more of those as the movie plays on), in order to establish just how dully cynical and elitist his world view and tastes are. There doesn’t seem to be much room for emotional evolution in the life of this man, which supposedly changes in an instant when a baby is left on the doorstep of his bookstore.
Having no idea how to raise a child, he consults Ismay (Christina Hendricks), who is currently with child herself and unhappily married to the unfaithful Daniel (Scott Foley) and was the sister of A.J.’s late wife. Inevitably, A.J.’s new child, Maya (played by Blaire Brown at the oldest we see her), and newly formed romance with Amy soften the impenetrable exterior of the cynical man – or so the movie seems to feel. We aren’t as convinced that A.J. can change, and even worse, it’s nearly impossible to care about any of this.
The movie eventually seems to be an excuse to come up with increasingly annoying, treacly or otherwise manipulative complications for these characters, such as a long-distance relationship between A.J. and Amy, or the marital troubles between Ismay and Daniel, or the misadventures involving a stolen book that lead A.J. into the office of the local sheriff (David Arquette), only for the bumbling cop to play a more important role than anyone might have asked. To add insult to injury, the final act of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry tries to go for genuine catharsis through tragedy. It is, simply put, bunk.
Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment
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