? An L.A. writer (Adam Brody of The O.C.) heads to Michigan to stay with his addled grandmother and get his head together after being dumped by his girlfriend. There he becomes involved with a mother (Meg Ryan) and daughter (Kristen Stewart) with some personal issues. Written and directed by Jonathan Kasdan.
+ What’s this low-concept, character-driven movie doing in my local multiplex? The ordinary thing you’d expect from the premise is that the writer would romance a local beauty, bond with Grandma, and write a great novel, but instead he meets a troubled housewife and a teenage girl. (The husband and a younger daughter also figure in the story.) This probably won’t be the role that establishes Ryan as a character actress, but I mostly liked her as a forward yet self-doubting woman whose daughter wrongly sees her as plastic. I also appreciated how Kasdan, while ending the movie at a logical stopping point, leaves a couple of the storylines unresolved.
- Kasdan’s initial writing effort isn’t bad, but the way he forces these characters to interact seems, well, forced. Specifically, among other things, I didn’t believe that Ryan’s 40ish housewife would transparently pretend to have baked fig newtons so as to introduce herself to the attractive 25-year-old across the street and ask him to take a walk. And Grandma, played by Olympia Dukakis, seems like an ill-conceived attempt to inject humor. There’s some interesting ingredients here, including issues of infidelity, rejection, teen angst, and illness, but considering all that the movie should probably have more of an emotional impact.
= **3/4 Not strong enough to recommend to non-fans of this type of movie, but maybe worth a look for those seeking adult drama devoid of bow-tied endings and cloying sentimentality.
IMDB link
reviewed 4/27/07
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