In the Land of Women
| Year: | 2007 |
| Production Co: | Castle Rock Entertainment |
| Studio: | Warner Bros |
| Director: | Jonathan Kasdan |
| Writer: | Jonathan Kasdan |
| Cast: | Meg Ryan, JoBeth Williams, Olympia Dukakis |
This movie had all the makings of a comic romance, but turned out to be a dour drama with breast cancer, break-ups and unrequited love.
A failing LA soft porn writer moves temporarily to the Midwest to be with his ailing grandmother but finds himself ingratiated into the lives of the family across the road, where the mother (Ryan) is struggling with fear of her damning diagnosis and her husband's infidelity, the eldest daughter is going through a phase of rejecting everything about her mother, and the youngest daughter is holding everything together.
While he tries to sort out his own heartbreak after being dumped by a famous model he had it bad for, tenuous and tender connections occur all over the place, confusing everyone's hearts even more.
It's a small, slight story, simply enough told and adequately acted and designed, but don't watch it on a bad day, as it's one of those that zeroes in on other people's misery and reminds us we all have problems.
I get the impression it was a passion project for Kasdan - there are a few too many off beats and off tones for it to have been greenlit in its current form otherwise.
It's worth watching however as Meg Ryan has a grace we haven't seen in her in a long time.
A failing LA soft porn writer moves temporarily to the Midwest to be with his ailing grandmother but finds himself ingratiated into the lives of the family across the road, where the mother (Ryan) is struggling with fear of her damning diagnosis and her husband's infidelity, the eldest daughter is going through a phase of rejecting everything about her mother, and the youngest daughter is holding everything together.
While he tries to sort out his own heartbreak after being dumped by a famous model he had it bad for, tenuous and tender connections occur all over the place, confusing everyone's hearts even more.
It's a small, slight story, simply enough told and adequately acted and designed, but don't watch it on a bad day, as it's one of those that zeroes in on other people's misery and reminds us we all have problems.
I get the impression it was a passion project for Kasdan - there are a few too many off beats and off tones for it to have been greenlit in its current form otherwise.
It's worth watching however as Meg Ryan has a grace we haven't seen in her in a long time.