SUZE– 4 STARS

The linchpin of the new release dramedy Suze isn’t the nicknamed middle-aged female title character played by comedienne and Saturday Night Live alum Michaela Watkins. While she’s the unquestioned lead (and a darn good one at that) her story of a mother sour from a divorce away from a cheating husband five years prior and reeling at the impending life change coming from the high school graduation and college transition of her only child has an ordinary—albeit plenty relatable—value. The overall course is made unexpectedly and tremendously more interesting by the inclusion of a celebrated archetype that’s harder to pull off than audiences realize: the himbo.

LESSON #1: THE QUINTESSENTIAL TRAITS OF A HIMBO– There’s a great Reddit comment labeling Josh Segarra’s “Lance” character from the TV series The Other Two as “Head empty. Heart full of gold. Just like I like ‘em.” That’s as good a description as you’ll find this side of Urban Dictionary’s official entry outlining the other chief traits of naivety, overconfidence, and handsomeness. From Lance, Joey Tribbiani, and Andy Dwyer on TV to Jeff Spiccoli and Barbie’s Ken in cinema, we sure do like, and maybe even love, these buff dolts. They’re often the stick that stirs the drink as a bottomless source of levity and an easy target for jokes.

For Suze, soon-to-be-27-year-old Canadian actor Charlie Gillespie fits that bill (and it’s an act this writer has seen from him before in the micro-budgeted indie The Class two years ago) as Gage. The exterior is on point with his long chocolate tresses, tattooed and tanned physique, horny energy, and winning smile. Exhibiting garage band talent, a rudderless life plan, the most random gift of gab, and a deranged devotion to his sweetheart Brooke Larson (Sara Waisglass fo Ginny & Georgia) whose smothering mom is Michaela Watkins’s Susan Larson, the interior character makeup boxes are checked as well. The film introduces him barging out of the bathroom after spending the night unannounced at the Larson house, shouting his pet name of “Suze” towards Watkins, and cluelessly scarfing up a meticulously made eggs benedict breakfast-in-bed meal that was meant for someone else. 

From moment zero, the quintessential himbo traits are on blast with Gage which, in many cases, are the worst nightmare for a mother like Susan trying to guide an impressionable and needy daughter, especially the part about the lazy lack of commitment to any viable future that’s not ten seconds or ten feet in front of him. Susan, or Suze of course, thinks Brooke can do better, despite her reciprocated romantic worship towards him. When Brooke swerves her college plan from staying local to a five-hour, big-city move to Montreal, Susan’s increasingly perimenopausal world of unwanted stresses and midlife crises crumbles even further. The whiplash of Brooke hits Gage too when she breaks up with him after one last hot summer. 

The split sends the truehearted troglodyte down a crestfallen path of a failed suicide attempt. The severity of Gage’s behavior and Susan’s parental guilt run parallel. After Gage’s deadbeat dad (Aaron Ashmore, all grown up from Smallville) convinces Susan to essentially be his overqualified babysitter for a few weeks while he’s out of town for work, the empty nest mom and the abandoned beau serendipitously end up under the same roof. In a moment of empathetic incisiveness, Gage calls out the predicament perfectly to say “It’s kind of funny, Suze. We both got left by the same person.”

In more feebleminded hands, this is where—27 minutes in—Suze could have turned into an uproarious and increasingly problematic cringe comedy. Some obligation for shock value and low-hanging fruit would have made Gage’s zany antics cruder and cruder against Susan’s uptight square of a woman. The results of that route would have netted a few laughs only to grow grating and stupefying over time. A dash or two of that makes its way into the screenplay from co-writing/co-directing duo Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart completing their second feature-length effort. However, it’s keenly satisfying to see Suze aim higher and become deeper than that possible foregone conclusion.

LESSON #2: IT’S REALLY HARD WHEN SOMEONE YOU CARE ABOUT MOVES ON– Our two counterparts in Suze—separated by gender, generation, wisdom, and responsibility—share common pain. Gage and Suze examine and lean on the parts of their hearts that were emptied by the departure of Brooke. From different perspectives, they address their losses and grow on each other. Through chances taken from the other’s motivation and urging, Suze and Gage find new temperaments of solace, understanding, and acceptance. As it turns out, they bond as closer supporters of each other than their own families.

LESSON #3: SHEDDING ASSUMPTIONS AND BLAME– All of these emotional improvements in Suze come from two people shedding assumptions and blame. Suze finds ways to look past the loser label of Gage and see his ardent loyalty and untapped dreams. She too has a defeated post-divorce shell and an unplanned future of missing individuality, where Gage’s cuddly lifestyle helps remove those self-imposed barriers. Likewise, anyone like Gage with a negligent father, incarcerated mother, and a broken leg from nearly jumping off a water tower over a girl has unaddressed blame curdling on the inside, no matter how cool the outside pretends to be. Wrongs are corrected, and the power of a shared “I’m sorry you had to go through that” shakes unhealed cores.

Suze settles itself within the spirit of their heart-to-heart talks, and what a shift from the norm it is. Truths are found and spoken into existence, even if they are barbed, blunt, or uttered in the foot-in-your-mouth wrong ways from time to time. The unlikely on-screen give-and-take between Michaela Watkins and Charlie Gillespie meshes very well. Rather than settle for scenarios reliant on gags, miniature episodes of bonding find two souls with convincing and completely platonic chemistry. Witnessing this journey is an absolute pleasure to behold in Suze, a little gem that can unite wayward young audiences with the jaded adult parents out there both trying to make sense of shifting crossroad moments of their lives. When Suze and Gage come to say “I’m really glad you’re here,” you will find yourself nodding in agreement about the sweet movie itself, and it all started with a convincing himbo.