"Lovely and Amazing", back in 2001, left me cold, although the critics thought it a great movie about being a woman in today's self-obsessed west coast USA "culture", if that's what the Californian lifestyle can be called. It was probably a mistake to go and see this one, since director Nicole Holofcener has applied her undoubted talent for constructing penetrating portraits from small details to a group of unremarkable women united it seems, by their obsessions. Flawed characters often make interesting movies, but the problem here is that there is no story, no conflict, no character development, just a string of small incidents.
Admittedly, some of it is downright funny, such as when the Jennifer Anniston character Olivia becomes entangled with her rich friend's personal trainer, (Scott Caan) who has the body of a man but the emotional intelligence of an eight-year old. And Frances McDormand, one of those actors incapable of giving a bad performance, is very convincing as the woman who just can't stand injustice such as being beaten to a parking space or subject to queue-jumping. But what makes her like that? Her possibly gay husband (Simon McBurney) asks her at one point, but we don't get an answer. And just why do the husband and wife TV scriptwriting team (played by Catherine Keener and Jason Isaacs) have so much conflict? it's not just creative tension. Is he really such a jerk?
It is hard to have much empathy with these people. If the Frances character was indignant about, say, global warming or African poverty instead of queue-jumping we might see the point. The friends with the real money (Joan Cusack and Greg Germann-the Ali McBeal guy) are the most vacuous of the lot. Only Olivia has issues we can really relate to she works as a maid after leaving the posh Santa Monica prep-school she taught at because the kids, scornful of the ancient Honda she drives, threw quarters at her. But she is an intelligent and attractive young woman (heck, she used to be married to Brad Pitt!) and is not going to stay on the floor, so to speak, for long.
I was worried that my reaction was that of an unfeeling, unsympathetic male to a sincere, warm and heartfelt woman's movie, but Mrs Philby's reaction was similar in fact she liked the film even less than I did. Her views and mine on movies are often completely at variance. The trouble is the whole thing is wryly amusing, well acted, well observed, but somehow uninvolving. Where's the story? Where are the characters? All we have here is a collection of minor neuroses spawned and cocooned by affluence.
Admittedly, some of it is downright funny, such as when the Jennifer Anniston character Olivia becomes entangled with her rich friend's personal trainer, (Scott Caan) who has the body of a man but the emotional intelligence of an eight-year old. And Frances McDormand, one of those actors incapable of giving a bad performance, is very convincing as the woman who just can't stand injustice such as being beaten to a parking space or subject to queue-jumping. But what makes her like that? Her possibly gay husband (Simon McBurney) asks her at one point, but we don't get an answer. And just why do the husband and wife TV scriptwriting team (played by Catherine Keener and Jason Isaacs) have so much conflict? it's not just creative tension. Is he really such a jerk?
It is hard to have much empathy with these people. If the Frances character was indignant about, say, global warming or African poverty instead of queue-jumping we might see the point. The friends with the real money (Joan Cusack and Greg Germann-the Ali McBeal guy) are the most vacuous of the lot. Only Olivia has issues we can really relate to she works as a maid after leaving the posh Santa Monica prep-school she taught at because the kids, scornful of the ancient Honda she drives, threw quarters at her. But she is an intelligent and attractive young woman (heck, she used to be married to Brad Pitt!) and is not going to stay on the floor, so to speak, for long.
I was worried that my reaction was that of an unfeeling, unsympathetic male to a sincere, warm and heartfelt woman's movie, but Mrs Philby's reaction was similar in fact she liked the film even less than I did. Her views and mine on movies are often completely at variance. The trouble is the whole thing is wryly amusing, well acted, well observed, but somehow uninvolving. Where's the story? Where are the characters? All we have here is a collection of minor neuroses spawned and cocooned by affluence.