It’s a busy time for the family Kasdan.
Writer-director Jake Kasdan has a comedy, ‘The TV Set,’ just in release. Brother Jon is opening his feature In ‘The Land of Women’ this weekend and father Lawrence (‘Raiders of the Lost Arc,’ ‘The Big Chill’) is credited as producer.
Both of the Kasdan siblings show their father’s skill at handling multiple leads with shifting relationships.
'In The Land of Women,’ Jon Kasdan has fashioned a gentle film that places a young man (well, 28 actually) in a romantic relationship with both a mother and daughter – in somewhat the same manner as did Mike Nichols with Dustin Hoffman four decades ago in ‘The Graduate.’
Although that seminal film was a comedy-satire.
An appealing Adam Brody (The O.C, Thank You For Smoking) is Carter Webb, an aspiring Hollywood screenwriter who churns out soft-porn, setting up a scenario of his needing something real in a life dedicated to the fantasies of teenage boys and tired businessmen.
Kasdan writes a hilarious scene where a female porn star is searching for her motivation for her physical exertions.
Carter’s love life is also a little unreal – he is besotted with a French supermodel, Sophia (Elena Anaya). As the film opens she is just breaking up with him -– in a North Hollywood coffee shop.
Heartbroken, he decides to go up to Michigan (Victoria, British Columbia actually) to live with his Alzheimer’s addled grandmother (Olympia Dukakis).
While trying to make some sense of his own life, he becomes embroiled with the distaff side of the Hardwicke family across the street. Mother Sarah (Meg Ryan) is particularly needy. She’s just discovered a lump in her breast, is alienated from her teen-age daughter Lucy (Kristen Stewart) and her husband (Clark Gregg) is having an affair.
Soon Sarah and our hero find themselves in each other’s arms in a forest glade just down the street.
The rebellious Lucy is also blundering through her young life and in her confusion she’s making all the wrong choices - including a short episode with Carter.
Kasdan is smart in not letting Carter succumb to the temptations of sleeping with Sarah, despite a bit of discreet lust on her part and a mild interest on his.
Sex is not really an issue here and poor Carter finds himself embroiled in their lives by just being there rather than any overt effort to bed the ladies.
Before this heartfelt and obviously sincere effort ends there is a brush with death and a helping of teenage high school angst delivered by some well-drawn and ardent characters driven by what appears to be genuine emotions. Through these relationships Carter discovers that he too has the wherewithal to pick up the pieces and move on with life’s adventures.
The young but assured Kasdan has created a small film that wrestles with big emotions. He never quite pulls us emotionally into his characters’ lives so the substantial emotions don’t resonate as they might, but he has fashioned (dare I say it) a sensitive narrative peopled with ingratiating characters. You become involved in their lives and you hope these nice folks will find whatever it is they are looking for.
Brody’s Carter is the sort of bemused, likeable fellow who could easily slide into intimate relationships with three generations of lonely ladies. He’s loaded with charm without the conspicuous good looks of Ryan Philippe or Brad Pitt.
Meg Ryan, whose solid abilities as an actress have often been eclipsed by her dreary succession of glib romantic comedies, is moving easily into middle age and turns in a quite moving performance. Stewart is not only lovely but shows the promise of becoming something more in the future.
Like his father before him, Kasdan has a real ear for the way people talk. The writer-director only shows his lack of experience in small ways. He is unable to reign in Dukakis, who never saw a camera angle she didn’t love. She plays the death obsessed grandma with a sepulchral tone as if she has already passed on and risen like one of Robert Rodrigues’ zombies.
Makenzi Vega is effective as the awesomely articulate younger sister (described in the film as “precocious”) but speaks like no teenager you’ve ever met.
In the Land of Women is a superior chick flick. Much of it rings true and one fervently hopes that there is room for a small, earnest film with big ambitions in a world of larger then life Greek warriors, homoerotic figure skaters and tributes to the bad movies of yesteryear.
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