Mack & Rita (2022) is basically Freaky Friday for brunch girls and wine moms—except Diane Keaton is a 30-year-old trapped in a 70-year-old body. And yes, that sentence makes sense. Somehow.
Mack (played by Elizabeth Lail) is a struggling writer who’s been sucked into the Instagram vortex—hashtags, ring lights, performative coolness. But deep down, she’s a grandma at heart. She doesn’t want to go to Coachella. She wants to nap. She wants to wear elastic pants and complain about the neighbors.
And she gets her wish.
After crawling into a New Age pop-up “regression pod” (which looks like a busted tanning bed run by a cracked-out shaman), Mack wakes up as Diane Keaton. Not playing a different character. Not someone else’s body. Literally still Mack—just older, sassier, and with orthopedic shoes. Her dog doesn’t recognize her. Her friends are confused. Her boss doesn’t want to hear it. And worst of all, there’s a hot guy in her building—kind, helpful, dreamy—and she’s suddenly unsure if she’s allowed to flirt with him… because she’s now visibly his mom’s age.
So yes, this becomes a romantic comedy where Diane Keaton tries to seduce a much younger man. And you know what? She nails it. You believe it. Because charisma is charisma. And Keaton’s got it in every fiber of her slightly-wrinkled being.
I loved watching her drink wine with the girls. Fail miserably at Pilates. Set her own hair on fire. She makes it all work—not in a “ha ha, old people are funny” way, but in a way that reminds you why she’s still iconic. Every scene she’s in has a kind of fizzy, fizzy delight to it—like your cool aunt decided to crash your bachelorette party and somehow became the main event.
Now, let’s be honest. Mack & Rita got roasted on IMDb and Letterboxd. And I’m here to say: everyone is wrong, and I am right.
This isn’t trying to be a prestige dramedy. It’s not aiming for the Criterion Collection. It’s a light, fizzy, female-centered body comedy with a $500,000 budget, shot during COVID, and still managed to break even theatrically. You think it didn’t make bank on streaming later? Please.
And I haven’t even mentioned that Martin Short shows up in a cameo as a talking dog hypnotist. You heard me.
Katie Aselton directed this with charm and restraint. She’s done other solid work (The Freebie, Black Rock, Legit, GLOW), but this is arguably her most fun movie. Even if it didn’t land with critics. Even if it bombed with dudes who think comedy needs explosions or an A24 logo.
This one is for the girls. For the weirdos. For the brunch moms and the old souls. If that’s not you, fair. If it is? You’ll have a blast.
So yeah. I recommend this. And not with an asterisk or a disclaimer. It’s a good time. And if the crowd doesn’t get it?
Then maybe the crowd’s just not old enough.