Don’t let the title fool you.

Sure, The Meddler features a mom who sticks her nose into places that exasperate her grown daughter in all ways possible.

No make that the brain, voice and moxie of mother Marnie, who followed her grown kid Lori to Los Angeles from the East Coast, only to have a full life come up empty when the men in their lives go away. Husband/dad passes away, affecting both women deeply. The younger woman splits with her boyfriend, and mom makes it her business to have a say in that part of her daughter’s life. And she’s got plenty of time for romance-inspection. And more.

Of course Marnie’s moxie unsettles Lori, a writer who’s working on a TV pilot.

Susan Sarandon and Rose Byrne click fabulously in the star roles.

Writer/director Lorene Scafaria makes it easy for them with a script based on the relationship with her own mom. The elevator ride of ups and downs between the pair throbs with real passion as a result as Marnie gets too close with Lori’s friends, keeps her hand on the pulse of that ex and even jets back east to take a look at the budding professional career, too.

Sarandon wears the meddlesome mom role comfortably, throwing out opinions and directions a-mile-a-minute.

But Marnie’s not washed up by any means, and Sarandon’s quite ready for the romantic side of this senior, too, fending off one too-enthusiastic suitor but growing more comfortable with the reedy ways of the retired cop played by terrific J.K. Simmons.

My dear wife Karen and I smiled through the downs and ups on the living room flat screen, happy for the check out from the library.