SOFIA COPPOLA'S ‘ON THE ROCKS' IS A MODEST DELIGHT

Few filmmakers can bring a rut to life like Sofia Coppola. When her characters are in a funk, whether it’s a Hollywood actor in between jobs, a few lost souls in a foreign place or a Queen, it’s never the stuff of melodrama.

She has an eye for the comedic banalities of the everyday like the excruciating awkwardness of a stilted conversation or, as in her latest “ On the Rocks,” the image of an overwhelmed mother trying to nap in the glaring sunlight while a Roomba bangs its way through the apartment.

She turns her camera this time to Laura (Rashida Jones), a well-off writer living in a SoHo loft with two young daughters and a husband, Dean (Marlon Wayans) who lately has been distant, physically and emotionally, while launching his new business. Laura is getting by, dressing in a kind of uniform (Breton stiped shirts, denim and a gold necklace) and trying her best to cling on to signifiers of a once simple and nice life. But her days are spent in a rush from morning to night getting her daughters to school, to naps, to ballet, to dinner, to the bath and to bed. Her Chanel purse is almost never carried without a stroller and a canvas Strand bookstore tote bag along with it and her beautiful ceramic Dutch oven is now just for making instant mac and cheese. She’s also on deadline for a book that she has no time or will to write. Her few moments of quiet are spent rearranging her desk and making labels for ideas folders.