Here Today Reviews

Here Today is a lightweight comedy/drama intended to offer a heavy dose of the feels. When a young woman accidentally wins a date with an aging comedic writer, they become fast friends despite a 30-year age gap and wildly different backgrounds. Charlie Berns (Billy Crystal) is a legendary, award-winning writer of comedy with scads of credits to his name. Despite his fame in movies, television, and live theatre, he now writes late-night sketch comedy, which he's lucky to be doing because he's losing his touch. Emma Payge (Tiffany Haddish) is a singer who accidentally wins a lunch date with Charlie at a celebrity auction. She has no idea who he is, but she ponied up a few dollars to get a ticket for her cheating boyfriend, whom she then dumps and decides to use the ticket for herself.Charlie and Emma bond when the date suddenly sours as she has an allergic reaction to shellfish. Now entrenched in one another's lives, Emma slowly realizes that there's something very wrong with Charlie. His memory is fading fast - he even has a hard time walking to work. But with her help, she might just be able to help him finish one last task before his mind is completely gone.Emma puts her own career on hold to care for her new best friend, and the two decide they're going to enjoy some platonic laughs together. Charlie gets a chance to see Emma's talent shine whenever she sings, and Emma gets to see Charlie's soft underbelly when she tries to help him reconnect with his family and the memory of his wife. Directed and co-written by Crystal (Forget Paris, Mr. Saturday Night), Here Today feels like he's trying to prove to himself that he's still capable of making great movies, with disappointing results. While the film is technically capable and his character Charlie has great chemistry with Emma, the laughs are few and far between, with the schmaltz factor set to high.Unfortunately, Charlie's fading memory is not a funny subject, which although endearing in its own sweet way, really puts the brakes on the laughs. There were so many opportunities to inject humor into the side stories though, such as the sketch comedy show that Charlie is still writing for, or every scene that pigeon-holed Emma as a good friend and caregiver and not a comic genius in her own right. It's easy enough to see where the funny moments are telegraphed in Here Today, but it's much harder to actually laugh while they're happening. It's more of a politely smiling and nodding film, while waiting for it to get better - which it never does. The middling drama is cloyingly sweet, and the actors are always fun to watch, even when their talent is wasted. Here Today will certainly be forgotten tomorrow.