SYNOPSIS:
" It’s messy," Carter Webb says about the
world. "And it’s chaotic, and it’s never
ever the thing you’d expect." Carter should know.
Heartbroken over a smashed love affair and weary of a dismal
job, he flees Los Angeles to care for his ailing grandmother
in a leafy Michigan suburb- and finds what he doesn’t
expect: mother-and-daughter neighbours, both beautiful, and
both facing crises of life, love and confidence.
Adam
Brody (The O.C.’s breakout star, according to Time)
makes his starring film debut as Carter, co-starring with
Kristen Stewart, Meg Ryan and Olympia Dukakis in a tender
film celebrating wit, romance, letting go, holding on and
falling hard. What more could a young man hope to find In
The Land of Women?
MOVIE REVIEW:
Sincerity can be so sorely missing from movies nowadays.
Many of them are sleekly packaged products designed as diversions,
but are really nothing much but empty concoctions. Amidst
such artificiality, here comes a movie that reminds us of
the humanity and the humanness of each one of us.
Missing
a theatrical release, In The Land of Women makes its quiet
debut on our shores direct to home video. It is writer-director
Jonathan Kasdan’s first feature, and like his father
Lawrence Kasdan, he displays an ability to bring a refreshingly
human touch to movies, much like his father did in ”The
Big Chill”.
Of
course, this is not only the younger Kasdan’ maiden
feature, it is also Adam Brody (star of The O.C.)’s
breakout role as a big screen actor. If it is a foretaste
of what we can expect from the two, there are many reasons
to be excited. Here Brody plays Carter, a sensitive and self-deprecating
writer of soft porn flicks, with great singular charm.
Carter
has just been dumped by his movie star girlfriend and at the
age of 28 is already at a turning point in his life. Simply
put, he doesn’t quite know where he’s going. So
when the chance to move away from his life in LA comes up,
he grabs it and heads off to Michigan to visit his grandmother,
Phyllis (Olympia Dukakis in a very funny scene-stealing role).
Right
across the street from his grandmother’s house is where
Lucy (Kristen Stewart) and Sarah (Meg Ryan) Hardwicke live.
Carter first strikes up a friendship with Sarah, Lucy’s
mother, who then persuades her daughter Lucy to take the nice
guy next door who’s all alone by himself out on a date.
Grudgingly, Lucy agrees and finds Carter’s company quite
amiable after all.
The
movie sets Carter up as a late twenties young man, too old
for the married 40-plus Sarah and too young for high school
girl Lucy. Nevertheless, Carter brings to their life not romance
but perspective, perspective for Sarah as she battles breast
cancer, and perspective for Lucy who has for many years hated
her mother.
What
makes the younger Kasdan’s film debut so promising is
how he manages to balance romance and drama ever so delicately,
such that the movie never feels overly maudlin, nor too flippant
of its characters’ predicaments. Instead, each of the
character’s struggles, whether Carter, Lucy or Sarah,
is absolutely heartfelt and the result of which is a winning
combination.
Besides
the very excellent Adam Brody, Kristen Stewart and Meg Ryan
are also equally brilliant in their roles. Kristen Stewart
lends her character Lucy a vulnerability that will surely
remind you of your adolescent indecisions and uncertainties.
And Meg Ryan, as the faithful wife who sticks by her cheating
husband for the sake of her daughters, is just as real in
her portrayal of Sarah.
The
younger Kasdan has made a very promising debut here with a
great cast that he’s assembled for this movie. Surprisingly
tender and pleasantly warm, you’ll definitely want to
spend an evening In The Land of Women.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
None
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Picture
is well rendered, bringing out nicely the colours and hues
of autumn and winter of the suburb that’s the backdrop
for most of this movie.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Gabriel Chong
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