Though it’s something of a backhanded paean to its eponymous city in question, the most enjoyable element to “Lost & Found in Cleveland” is its locations, locations, locations — cinematographer Davon Slininger’s widescreen images provide an appealing selective tour of a burg the film presents as quaintly lagging well behind the times. Otherwise, this slick if uninspired first feature for actors turned writer-directors Marisa Guterman and Keith Gerchak offers a pleasant-enough ensemble seriocomedy that straddles the terrains of Richard Curtis and Christopher Guest, without approaching either’s high points. The Newport Beach Fest world premiere’s familiar faces and story beats seem best suited to home viewing.
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An opening montage to the retro pop of Bobby Darin singing “Artificial Flowers” — an incongruously brassy, “Mack the Knife”-like arrangement of a depressing slum-tragedy lyric from 1960 Broadway musical “Tenderloin” — introduces the characters, as well as a sense that this midwestern metropolis’ growth stalled some decades ago. It’s getting towards Christmastime, but most central figures here are frustrated in one way or another. Many peg hopes on the imminent tour stop of “America’s Favorite Televised Antiques Appraisal Show,” whose traveling experts evaluate the “trash or treasure” that’s been “hiding in your closet.” (Mark L. Walberg, formerly of the actual, long-running “Antiques Roadshow,” plays the host of the fictive “Lost & Found.”)
Dennis Haysbert is cast as a mail deliverer without the moolah to realize his dream of opening a restaurant to showcase his beloved late mother’s recipes. Retired veteran Stacy Keach is drifting into senility, as well as frequent flashbacks to his Korean War service, while concerned librarian spouse June Squibb tries to keep him present in the here-and-now. Widowed waitress Yvette Yates Redick and misfit nine-year-old son Benjamin Steinhauser remain in mourning for the man of the house — a vacancy poorly filled by her loutish current boyfriend (Rob Mayes).
On the more comedic side, Liza Weil from “How to Get Away With Murder” and “Gilmore Girls” plays a socialite who married into money and lives in an old-school mansion. But her son is off at college, her doctor husband happy to work abroad (he’s currently spending two years in Abu Dhabi), leaving her no object to exert her aspirational drive on, save one highly resistant teenage daughter (Vanessa Burghardt). Well, she also has a large statue of the goddess Juno that she is determined will prove a priceless antiquity.
Considerably more ambivalent about the “treasures” in his possession is university lecturer Santino Fontana, a new resident alongside his dentist wife Esther Povitsky. She is maddeningly chatty about the precise thing he’d like to keep secret, and which may have gotten them ejected from their prior community: A huge collection of embarrassing “Aunt Jemima”-style racist tchotchkes, inherited from his grandmother.
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Once the “Lost & Found” crew arrives for their one-day shoot, the general tenor shifts towards the satirical realm of “Best in Show,” with actors riffing on various officious, competitive personality types. Jeff Hill and Rory O’Malley play a bickersome gay couple whose snobbery is largely directed towards fellow appraiser Loretta Devine. Dot-Marie Jones is the event’s ill-tempered house manager, while Martin Sheen and Jon Lovitz turn up briefly as a high-ranking antiques expert and the city’s mayor, respectively. The directors’ script achieves a satisfactory tying-up of all strands in this climactic stretch, even if there’s scant surprise in the way protagonists get hopes rewarded or dashed to the exact degree that they’ve been naughty or nice.
Indeed, the main trouble here is that the material is formulaic without being particularly funny or touching within those confines, its stabs at quirkiness seldom developed in a way this capable cast can take flight with. Apart from the surreal humor in an early scene at a Presidential museum, nothing much is made of the grade-schooler’s nerdy obsession with lesser-sung POTUS William McKinley. Other tidbits of local historical interest (including ties to “The Wizard of Oz”) get tossed in rather randomly, to no particular effect. Attempted quips lean more sour than clever, occasional sight gags fall flat, and the rare truly left-field idea — like a production-number fantasy for Haysbert involving dancing chorines — is too weakly executed to land. Each character has one repetitive note to play, whether farcical or plaintive, diminishing the intended payoffs of hilarity or heart-tugging.
Nonetheless, “Lost & Found in Cleveland” is one of those films that has enough surface polish to convince audiences that they’re having a good time, even as it becomes apparent the individual ingredients aren’t so fresh. Editor Tricia Holmes’ nimble pacing makes two hours go by painlessly. Music supervisor Jim Black papers the soundtrack with the kinds of pre-rock kitsch (by Guy Lombardo, Paul Whiteman, Frankie Laine, Doris Day, Henry Mancini et al.) that lend both nostalgic bounce and a winking ironic gloss to proceedings. Attractive photographic coverage of Cleveland’s somewhat faded architectural splendors is matched by Kristen Adams’ production design, whose interiors fondly reflect a lack of interest and/or funds to update decor, still frozen in past eras. The piano and orchestral strings of Sven Faulconer’s original score shore up the screenplay’s more sentimental angles. It all adds up to an entertainment that isn’t terribly good, yet hums along pleasantly.
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