The Good House

Cue the real-estate puns for The Good House, which features a heartfelt performance in the market for a better movie.

Sigourney Weaver — in a rare and welcome starring role, especially for a woman past middle age — shines throughout this character study that otherwise struggles to modulate elements of suburban satire, bittersweet romance, and addiction drama.

Weaver plays Hildy Good, a successful longtime realtor in a coastal Massachusetts town of quaint properties with pristine views and inflated prices to match.

However, beneath her social status and her public image, she’s a mess personally and financially, harboring feelings of regret and loneliness behind a sardonic yet sociable façade.

Then we learn her insecurities are primarily self-inflicted, even if she refuses to admit it. “I was born three drinks short of comfortable,” she rationalizes about her affinity for the bottle. But is she oblivious or just in denial?

Hildy considers herself at worst a functioning alcoholic, although her fractured family disagrees, including her ex-husband (David Rasche) and two grown daughters (Rebecca Henderson and Molly Brown), who have been negatively impacted by her erratic behavior.

The occasional intervention or rehab stint always seems to coincide with an appearance by Frank (Kevin Kline), a former sweetheart who runs a contracting business. As a longtime confidant, Frank knows Hildy’s secrets, yet is more enabling, which means he might ultimately also hold the key to her recovery.

Weaver generates hard-earned sympathy for a woman compromised by her stubbornness and burdened by self-imposed pressures regarding her family and business. She conveys an easygoing chemistry with fellow old-pro Kline, who expertly mixes surface charm with internal vulnerability, although Frank too often seems to pop in when it’s convenient.

The screenplay by Thomas Bezucha (Let Him Go), along with husband-and-wife directors Wally Wolodarsky and Maya Forbes (Seeing Other People) — based on the novel by Ann Leary — is thematically more familiar than fresh.

The randomly nonlinear structure feels like a gimmick, as do Hildy’s occasional ventures into direct-address narration. The periphery characters are thinly sketched.

Some sentimental contrivances in the final act might provide hope for Hildy’s future. But as a deeply felt exploration of aging and coping mechanisms, The Good House doesn’t resonate as profoundly as intended.

Rated R, 103 minutes.