Written and Directed by Justin Long and Christian Long
Starring Melanie Lynskey, Justin Long, Ryan Phillippe, Judy Greer
Runtime: 1 hour 36 minutes
Rated R
In select theaters and for digital rent on September 17

by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer

There’s value in a movie that comes together simply because it’s easy to shoot and the actors in it are all friends. There’s an infectious energy that comes with it. Everyone feels like they genuinely want to be there. And yes, the film does include a blooper reel, so you know how much fun it was to make. Like the closing credits of SNL, you feel a little sad you weren’t invited, too.

You can see each plot element and music montage coming from a mile away, but you don’t care. Lady of the Manor stars Melanie Lynskey as Hannah, an unmotivated drug “deliverer” who finds herself on the wrong side of the law when she delivers to an address that was set up to catch a pedophile (a 19-year-old actor posing as a child with an oversized lollipop is a good gag here). Through a string of events that only exist in The Movies, Hannah meets Tanner Wadsworth (Ryan Phillippe, camping it up as an obnoxious rich boy), who needs someone to host tours at his family’s historic mansion in Savannah, Georgia. There’s a catch: the house is haunted by Lady Wadsworth (Judy Greer), a Southern belle and the original owner of the home who “takes umbrage” (her words) with how Hannah lives her life. Only Hannah can see her; presumably previous tour guides were not worthy of the Lady’s attention. A lonesome history professor named Max (Justin Long) with an obvious crush on Hannah is also along for the ride.

Lady of the Manor was written and directed by real-life brothers/friends/roommates Christian Long and actor Justin Long. Follow either (or both) of them on Instagram to see what kind of antics they get into. Justin donates his Cameo proceeds to charity. They do a podcast together. They wear pore strips in a hotel bed. They’re just’a good old boys! Long seems good-natured and he’s “aw, shucks” handsome. If you talk to Justin Long and you have no chemistry with him, well, that’s on you! If you’re not on board with goofy, good-natured actors who got their big break in horror and that show about a lawyer who owned a bowling alley, well, then here’s the door.

The film’s star, Melanie Lynskey, makes for a charming, perpetually stoned adult child. Lynskey never acts like her line delivery is amusing, which makes it even more endearing and laugh-out-loud funny. Take for example a conversation she has with one of the staff (Tamara Austin), whose ancestor, Josephine Zelda, once lived in the house. Lynskey inquires, “this might be a dumb question, but she wasn’t by any chance named after the actual Legends of Zelda?” Or when she forgets what the Bible is called and she refers to it as “the Jesus book.” We don’t spend as much time knowing Lady Wadsworth, and the film could have spent a little more time with flashbacks to 1860s Georgia for us to find her more amusing (her accent also comes and goes). The film uses CGI sparingly, and there’s only about one or two times when Lady Wadsworth ever appears ghost-like, such as walking through a door. She’s more of an imaginary friend of Hannah’s than a ghost. A little bit more effects could have made Lady of the Manor the Ghostbusters/Bridesmaids hybrid film it’s going for. 

I take comfort in the casting choices here, too. A film about an aimless ne’er-do-well would usually star actors in their late 20s, maybe their 30s. At some point their age would enter the dialogue, like, “Mary, you’re 30, you need to get your life together,” and I would be like ew, that line made me feel old and I do not like that. But all of the main actors in Lady of the Manor got their big break in the mid-to-late 1990s, and they’re all over 40. Lady of the Manor might lend itself to too many montages to easily-licensed songs, and a wasted opportunity to give Luis Guzman some good lines as Hannah’s bartender, but it’s an easy, charming comfort-watch.