Good news for fans of Gigi Levangie Grazer and her 2005 novel, “The Starter Wife” published by Simon and Schuster. Her fictional tome was mandatory beach summer reading, the story dished over a recently tossed away Hollywood wife: protagonist, Molly, (Gracie Pollock in the book) who rudely discovers that unceremoniously she has become what her peers bitingly refer to as “The Starter Wife.”
01/27/2005 - Debra Messing - "Molly" © Glenn Harris / Photorazzi
“The Starter Wife” is now the eponymous USA Network six part miniseries, launching May 31st and continuing on Thursdays until June 28th, and is based on Grazer's New York Times best-seller.
Grazer’s quick paced tale has been made into a masterful froth by screenwriters Josann McGibbon and Sara Parriott, written with the style of Grazer’s original laconic humor, resulting in a light and dark retelling of the original story for television.
It will appease fans of the book and features a superb cast that includes Debra Messing, Joe Mantegna, Miranda Otto & Anika Noni Rose and Judy Davis.
Grazer, also an executive producer for the project, wrote her cautionary and redemptive tale with a bit of the spirit of great novelists, Jacqueline Susanne and Jackie Collins. Grazer’s sharp-eyed modern tales of Hollywood, women and social hierarchy and their fleeting moments basking in the Sun is a fast paced page turner.
Grazer’s bird’s eye view of the high maintenance world of “The Wife Of,” rings true with an authoritative voice. She is, after all, The Wife Of… Brian Grazer. Her own road has been fraught with some publicly aired bumps, too.
Similar to actresses, these mogul wives must comply with a list of mandatory requirements: They must be thin. Their hair must be thick and shiny with Anastasia signature plucked and waxed eyebrows arched into perfect sculptures, replete with nails and toes manicured to perfection. Even down in “Australia,” L.A. code for Vagina and labia plastic surgeries, are becoming more the norm than aberrant occurrences.
Of course add Yoga, Pilates, detox Doctors and Herbal colon cleansing, Belladerma peels, Juvaderm, Restylane, Tumescent spot liposuction, cellulite massage therapy, mid-face lifts, custom lifts, Botox, hair extensions, Arcona facials, Christophe haircuts, the Buckley school, the hot restaurants to be seen in, and of course, the perfect home in the right location and a fab decorator too.
Messing was born to play a character with such a layer cake of emotions, angst and fear. As Molly, she has dutifully molded her life as her husband’s number one assistant: Computer scheduled dinners, lunches, parties, summer plans, and winter getaways. It’s exhausting but she knows the gig inside and out. Now, her successful husband has calculatedly aborted the marital mission, calling her from his cell phone to end their near decade of wedded bliss.
Her husband is Kenny, played by Peter Jacobson, who is having an affair with a young pop siren named Shoshanna, drawn in the fashion of a Britney Spears.
“Closure is vital” says curt Kenny to Molly at an event where Shoshanna assures Molly “just kiddingly” she would “totally wear” her left behind shoes if they just fit her feet. Molly is not amused.
Messing as Molly is pitch-perfect as the unwitting instant pariah. She’s forty-something, and over the hill in a town that worships youth, beauty, and status. But when Molly turns to her best friend Joan, played by the brilliant Davis, for a chance to slink away from the blinding klieg lights of constant rebuffing and turned backs, Molly heads to the ‘bu: Toney Malibu Colony, in July, the month “everyone who is anyone” is there.
Molly the "Starter Wife" thus begins to transition to her new life. She reveals her life “has become a movie twist only the French could understand.”
Along the lines of “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” - a sexy, mysterious beach stud saves Molly from an ill-fated sea kayak excursion in the rough, Pacific shoreline.
Joe Mantegna plays Lou Manahan, another Town titan, who is more powerful than Kenny. He’s a bit older, unusually kinder and savvy to the cannibalistic ways of Tinseltown societal mores.
He has an eye for Molly, and gamely pulls her out of the abyss with a well-timed kiss in front of key Mogul mavens lunching who had just slagged Molly as looking so “natural” – their code for “crap.” Mantegna has a tremendous amount of sex appeal in this role.
Now, out of the loop, the proverbial screws are into Molly, and her survival skills kick in as she reverts to her vocational skill sets pre-Kenny, and rediscovers her soul.
This miniseries is a recommended detour from your day-to-day, as a great ensemble cast digs at a world they, too, seem to know very well.
Jon Avnet directed the miniseries filmed on Australia’s Gold Coast. Both Judy Davis and Joe Mantegna are especially enjoyable to watch in this miniseries. Messing is radiant as the raven-haired, unsinkable Molly.
This is not “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” heavy fare, far from it, and bless you, Gigi, for having the stones to put it down for all our voyeuristic and vicarious guilty pleasure.
Grade: A
(this is a reprint from the original article posted May 26th)
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