Meryl Streepis a name synonymous with versatility and excellence in Hollywood. She was born to conquer the screen. A year after her screen debut, she won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1978 for the NBC miniseriesHolocaust. The same year, she earned an Oscar nod for the Vietnam War filmThe Deer Hunter, the first ofa record 21 Oscar nominations in her career.Since then, Streep has tantalized us with scintillating performances. We’ll never forget her near-perfect Polish accent in herOscar-winning performance as the lead inSophie’s Choice.With three Oscars under her belt, the doyenne of drama has mastered genre-hopping. Remember whenshe even took up the thrilling world of action?Well, in the course of her immaculate acting career, Meryl Streep has taken up some topsy-turvy roles too, and in the 2005 forgotten rom-com,Prime, she is at her most chaotic. Leaving behind the designer duds of Miranda Priestly inThe Devil Wears Prada, Streep goes rogue inPrime, orchestrating delightful chaos in the love story of a young couple.
A career driven professional from Manhattan is wooed by a young painter, who also happens to be the son of her psychoanalyst.
‘Prime’ Is a Tangled Web of Love and Therapy
Directed byBen Younger, Primeis an entanglement of its three main characters. Meryl Streep plays Lisa Metzger, a psychotherapist who’s helping a 37-year-old recently divorced woman, Rafi Gardet (played byUma Thurman), with her relationship goals. Rafi hasn’t been lucky with love, and her divorce has brought a sense of liberation into her life. She tells Streep’s Lisa about her newfound desire to have children, something she didn’t think about when she was married. Lisa encourages her to pursue happiness. When Rafi meets David Bloomberg (played byBryan Greenberg), a 23-year-old painter she has fallen in love with, she asks Lisa what to do, given their age difference. Lisa tells her, “Enjoy your life, you deserve this,” andperhaps as an indication of Lisa’s own internal turmoil, she adds, “Hell, I deserve this!” And even then, you can see a glimpse of gleeful jealousy in her eyes.
At home, Lisa’s son David shares with her that he is seeing someone older. Both David and Rafi lie to Lisa about the exact ages of their love interests. With the reality at her doorstep though, Lisa discourages David, contrary to her professional advice to Rafi earlier on. But she is even more disappointed that David’s girlfriend does not share the family’s Jewish religion. As Rafi shares her romantic details with Lisa, Lisa starts to piece them together and soon realizes, to her horror, that her son is the mystery man in her patient’s life. When Lisa’s parental and professional worlds collide, it becomes noisy and messy as the real drama begins to unravel onscreen.Primeserves up a hilarious skewering of society’s hang-ups on love, taking aim at age gaps, racial divides, and religious roadblocks — all with a side of laughter.
Meryl Streep’s Lisa Metzger Is A Therapist Unbound in ‘Prime’
Meryl Streep’s Lisa is a whirlwind of contradictions. At face value, she shows the clinical composure characteristic of her profession as a therapist. She offers sage advice to Rafi, encouraging her to pursue her desires. Yet beneath this façade is a woman with her own inadequacies, yearning for more in her life. From the outset, we see it in her eyes when Rafi details her new-found youthful romance. It’s what Streep is great at – embodying her characters through her body language, with facial expressions at the forefront. Her quirky facial expressions display the internal conflict she has even as she listens to Rafi. There’s a hint of desperation in her pronouncements about Rafi deserving happiness.It suggests an unspoken longing that bleeds into her professional advice.
Before we label Lisa as a caricature of a jealous therapist, we should consider how she also injectsmoments of humor that are both cringe-worthy and side-splitting.She awkwardly attempts to connect with her son David, joking jabbing at him for his choice of pursuing a career as a painter. While defending her own beliefs about tying romance to religion and age gaps, she simultaneously advises her clients to pursue relationships that defy those very conventions. When she can’t handle Rafi’s intricate details of the romance with her son David, and is almost caught in the lie by Rafi about her betrayal, she creates a distracting racket. While she presents a woman in control both at the professional level and at home, she is also in a complicated place reaching out to a therapist too.Lisa’s idiosyncratic character is interestingly both mortifying and strangely endearing because she is so relatable.
Meryl Streep’s Chaos Affects Other Characters in ‘Prime’
Meryl Streep’s Lisa’s chaos has a domino effect on those around her. For Rafi, her situation with Lisa is like a bad dream. She is initially hesitant to date David due to their age difference. It is Lisa who gives her the validation she needs to chase after her feelings. With the truth about Lisa’s connection to David coming out, and Lisa’s betrayal by continuing to attend to Rafi despite this knowledge, the foundation of their trust crumbles. It is the kind of unfortunate news that taints every other piece of advice Lisa has given Rafi. From Rafi’s perspective, Lisa is a selfish, manipulative control freak who doesn’t care about her as her patient. While Lisa defends her actions that they were the best thing to do at the time (to cut her some slack, she actually sought advice from her own therapist), the conventional moral thing to do would have been to tell Rafi and recuse herself as Rafi’s therapist. Lisa’s actions not only jeopardize her professional career but also the core principles of the therapy itself.Her actions leave Rafi feeling exposed and vulnerable. Even though Meryl Streep’s Lisa is not exactly the villain she was inThe Devil Wears Pradaas Miranda Priestly, her actions depict a similar egocentric woman willing to go the extra mile to achieve her goal, even if it means hurting someone else along the way.
For trying to juggle two conflicting roles — as a mother and a therapist — Lisa’s actions sour her relationship with her son, David. Despite their differences, especially her disapproval of his artistic career choice, they initially have a relatively strong mother-son bond. David’s adoration for her is evident in how he mentions her during his dates, and their interactions are filled with cheerful banter and hilarious phone calls. However, likethe controlling mother Meryl Streep portrays inThe Manchurian Candidate, Lisa wants to dictate her son’s life. She wishes for him to marry the woman of her dreams rather than his own. Although she genuinely believes it’s in David’s best interest, it’s as Rafi tells her — it’s about her need for control. Lisa’s actions rob David of the joy and innocence of a new relationship, and in its place, creating a constant sense of unease and the burden of choosing sides.
‘Prime’ Puts Meryl Streep at the Center of a Web of Social Commentary
Primedelves into social commentary on age, race, and religion, with Meryl Streep’s Lisa at the heart of it. Her liberal views as a professional therapist are put to the test when her own son, David, becomes romantically involved with her patient Rafi, who is significantly older than he is. As mentioned, on her professional capacity, she celebrates the freedom and joy that Rafi enjoys with her new relationship. However, when she discovers the young man in Rafi’s love life is her son, she takes a dramatic shift in perspective.Primeappears to question the hypocrisy of social attitudes, thatit can be easy to be progressive and open-minded when the situation is abstract, but personal stakes can reveal underlying biases.
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Streep’s Lisa is also at the heart of the film’sreligious social commentary. Lisa desires a Jewish daughter-in-law to fit into the family’s religion and culture.Primejuxtaposes the perspectives of the older generation with the perspectives of the younger one represented by Uma Thurman’s Rafi and Bryan Greenberg’s David. Lisa is caught in the middle. She projects progressive views, compared with those of the generation before her, but she is not ready to implement them. While her much older relatives are unwilling to let go though, Lisa is willing to give it a chance. She defends Rafi when other relatives come at her with questions about religion during a dinner party.Primetoo provides social commentary on mental health. By having Lisa, a practicing therapist seeking out professional help for her mental health, it also reveals that no one is immune to mental health struggles. While it doesn’t provide answers to these pertinent issues, by covering them,Primeprovides a basis for conversations about them.
Primeis a distinctive addition toMeryl Streep’s filmography. While it didn’t achieve the same level of recognition as some of her more acclaimed films, it provides a refreshing departure from her typically dramatic and controlled roles. Despite its imperfections (and there are many), Streep’s chaotic brilliance and the film’s relatable social commentary elevate it to a memorable rom-com that merits a second look.
Primeis currently available to rent or buy on Prime Video in the U.S.
