Canadian filmmaker-actress Lina Roessler's comedy-drama does not take long to announce itself as a smart movie for book lovers (even dropping the name of editor Maxwell Perkins). Any librarian can tell you the premise is largely a takeoff on the lore and legend of J.D. Salinger.
Struggling to maintain her father's NYC publishing house, Lucy Stanbridge (Aubrey Plaza) finds in the archives an old contract signed with longtime recluse Harris Shaw (Michael Caine), a UK emigre who had a hit book in the 1970s but has since dwelt as little more than a hermit in rural New England.
Needing the money—and perhaps to settle old scores with the Stanbridge family—Smith abruptly yields up an unpublished, hand-typed manuscript (some kind of apocalyptic thing called The Future is X-Rated) and grudgingly goes along with Lucy on a mandatory book tour. But the old curmudgeon refuses to do anything worthwhile except drink and swear at personal-appearance events. Thanks to the internet, this does indeed make Shaw a Generation-X/Y viral sensation, but Lucy is horrified the scandal is not translating into novel sales. Yet the tour must go on...
Viewers have seen this same sort of cranky-codger farce before (The Last Movie Star, with Burt Reynolds, comes to mind, especially), but those with long memories can recall Caine's much-lauded TV-movie turn as Ebeneezer Scrooge, and his well-modulated act here (replete with language the MPAA probably would have stamped an "R" on) humanizes the abrasive, alcoholic, misanthropic Shaw without making him saccharine.
The overall quality of intelligence at work here can be measured by the movie's ability to convey literary culture and the bittersweet chore of writing, a notorious visual challenge to any filmmaker. Highly recommended for general collections.