BOTTOM LINE: For a romantic comedy, this film is surprisingly more down to Earth and real than your typical rom-com, but still, there’s nothing remarkable going on here that warrants your interest.

THE GOOD: “Prime” starts off with what sounds like a typical rom-com concept. Rafi (Uma Thurman) is going through a divorce and is seeing a therapist in Lisa (Meryl Streep). Rafi meets David (Bryan Greenberg), 14 years her junior and they start up an improbable relationship. Co-incidentally, David is Lisa’s son and when Lisa finds out, she has a big dilemma on her hands on what to do about the situation given Rafi is her patient and not what she wants for David (ie not Jewish, traditional, religious, or the right age). There are moments where the film seems like it will break out in to comedy, particularly with the performance Meryl Streep gives as Lisa when she finds out about the relationship, but the film seems more focussed on being serious and exploring the lives of both Rafi and David as they share the experience of this seemingly improbable relationship. Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg do a decent job of playing a believable couple, as well as the intricacies involved with their age difference. Meryl Streep is always good, but her role is not as big as you would expect given she has title billing. Perhaps the big thing going for this film is that it ends on a seemingly positive tone, but the relationship does not end with ‘happily ever after’. The story focuses more on having an experience and moving on, which is a lot more life-like. In this respect, “Prime” offers something a little more fresh than the usual rom-com fare.

THE BAD: Despite some good points, nothing about “Prime” is particularly interesting. The film is not very memorable or offers any real moments that will catch your attention. Given the pedigree of the cast, you would expect that they would have better material to work with, particularly Meryl Streep who tries to give some dimension to her one-dimensional clichéd character and does not really succeed thanks largely to a script that gives her nothing to work with. Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg have a bit more to work with, but it is only in their performances that anything happens, not in the situations that are scripted for them. At the end of the film, there is no real sense of having been taken on any sort of journey, which is a shame because the seed ingredients were there to do so.